A Decline in Prophets

"Direct threats from Australia's warring Right and the Left having quieted, wealthy Rowland Sinclair and his group of bohemian friends are their way home to Sydney via New York after a lengthy stay in Europe. The wealthy Sinclair scion has treated his artist friends to first-class accommodations on the Cunard ship, the luxury liner of the day. Also on board are some members of the Theosophical Society, one of those spiritualism movements that had a heyday in the early twentieth century, as well as an aggressively conservative Irish Catholic bishop and his cohorts. Their clash ups the tensions in first class and presents the liner's captain with a tricky situation when bodies start to drop"--Amazon.com.