Miss Aldridge Regrets
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3.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
“Super cinematic and every bit as Agatha Christie-esque as its sounds... ifyou like murder mysteries, pick this one up!”
-Emily Henry, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Book Lovers
Named A Most Anticipated Mystery of Summer by Betches, Essence, Crime Reads and more!
The glittering RMS Queen Mary. A nightclub singer on the run. An aristocratic family with secrets worth killing for.
London, 1936. Lena Aldridge wonders if life has passed her by. The dazzling theatre career she hoped for hasn’t worked out. Instead, she’s stuck singing in a sticky-floored basement club in Soho, and her married lover has just left her. But Lena has always had a complicated life, one shrouded in mystery as a mixed-race girl passing for white in a city unforgiving of her true racial heritage.
She’s feeling utterly hopeless until a stranger offers her the chance of a lifetime: a starring role on Broadway and a first-class ticket on the Queen Mary bound for New York. After a murder at the club, the timing couldn’t be better, and Lena jumps at the chance to escape England. But death follows her onboard when an obscenely wealthy family draws her into their fold just as one among them is killed in a chillingly familiar way. As Lena navigates the Abernathy’s increasingly bizarre family dynamic, she realizes that her greatest performance won't be for an audience, but for her life.
With seductive glamor, simmering family drama, and dizzying twists, Louise Hare makes her beguiling US debut.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
British writer Hare makes her U.S. debut with an uneven Christie-esque mystery that unfolds during a transatlantic voyage on the Queen Mary in the summer of 1936. Lena Aldridge, a 26-year-old mixed-race London nightclub singer, is on her way to New York City, where she's been offered a role in a new Broadway show. She's ready for a fresh start. Her father, an African American piano player, recently died, leaving her with no family, plus her old boss was poisoned to death. While passing as Italian on board, Lena meets a wealthy white family from New York. Her traveling companion, Charlie Bacon, assistant to the Broadway producer, encourages her to charm them so they'll invest in the show. These are well-drawn characters: there's the elderly, ailing head of the family, Francis Parker; his aloof daughter, Eliza Abernathy; and her womanizing, alcoholic husband, Jack. Then Francis is poisoned just like Tommy, Jack is found stabbed to death, and Lena realizes she's being set up: "I felt as though I were trapped inside my own detective novel," she observes. Lena's amateur sleuthing and romantic interludes with the ship's handsome band leader are engaging, though the ending comes out of nowhere and Lena's final actions feel out of character. Despite the nice buildup, the payoff ends up being a bit disappointing.
