Nearly everyone is familiar with the story of the ill-fated ocean liner Titanic, or has seen it portrayed in films, but Bradley Harper’s novel Maiden Voyage: Love and Larceny Aboard the Titanic gives it new life as the unique setting of his clever and imaginative novel. It is a colorful and entertaining mix of the real-life backdrop of the ship’s ultimately tragic voyage overlaid with an entirely invented plot employing an ingenious combination of historical figures and fictional characters.

In the spring of 1912, members of a female crime gang, The Forty Elephants, are gathered in their London lair to discuss plans for their next big score. Their plan: steal a painting by a famous artist that recently sold for 100,000 pounds (approximately $487,000 back then, or about the equivalent of a whopping 33 million dollars now). The take will make them all rich for life. The painting is slated to be transported to New York on the maiden voyage of the White Star Line’s enormous new ship Titanic, which is said to be “unsinkable.”