MISS ALDRIDGE REGRETS

Hare harks back to the age of Agatha Christie in a sparkling murder mystery set on an ocean liner crossing the Atlantic in 1936.

Jazz singer Lena Aldridge, who narrates this charmingly retro novel, boards the RMS Queen Mary with a hefty envelope of cash and a passel of secrets. For one thing, she just witnessed a murder—or maybe more than witnessed. The scumbag owner of the nightclub where she sings has been dispatched with a cyanide-laced drink, and just as she thinks it might be expeditious to skedaddle, she meets mysterious musical agent Charlie Bacon, who offers her an all-expenses-paid voyage to the New World. He says he’s working for a Broadway impresario, a friend of her late father’s, who would like to offer her a role on the Great White Way. In London, Lena didn’t conceal the fact that her father was Black, but Charlie advises her to pass for White while traveling in first class on the Queen Mary since “Americans could be funny about things like that.” Once onboard, she becomes entangled with the large and troubled Parker clan. The Parkers are one of those wealthy American families, complete with personal doctor and private secretary, in which everyone has something to conceal. Soon enough, one after another of the clan succumbs to murder. As the bodies are falling around her, Lena finds comfort in the company of Black musician Will Goodman, but he can’t prevent her becoming the target of several attacks before the mystery is finally solved. Lena—whose hard-won wisdom includes the fact that “four martinis on an empty stomach will always result in poor decision-making”—is an appealing heroine, and Hare handles her old-fashioned material with a light touch, a keen eye for period detail, and a sturdy grasp on her complicated but at least semicredible plot.

Readers will be treated to escapist fun and an homage to some beloved books.