Miss Aldridge Regrets by Louise Hare( A Canary Club Mystery #1 Review! #MissAldridgeRegrets #NetGalley

 

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.

Louise Hare is a London-based writer and has an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck, University of London. Originally from Warrington, the capital is the inspiration for much of her work, including This Lovely City, which began life after a trip into the deep level shelter below Clapham Common.

https://louisehare.com/

My Thoughts

Miss Aldridge Regrets by Louise Hare is told in alternating people, one is an unknown until the end and the other is Lena Aldridge. It is told in two-time frames, one in the current year of 1936 and the other two weeks prior.

In the two weeks prior, Lena is singing at a sleazy club run by Tommy the husband, of her best friend. One night Tommy is killed, and all eyes look toward Lena, see she did not like him, he was a pretty sleazy man and treated her friend horribly by cheating in her.

Lena is mixed race, raised primarily by her father who has recently passed away from tuberculosis. She is offered a role on Broadway, she thinks that this is too good to be true, but she does not want to stick around so the police can pin the murder on her. 

The other chapters have Lena on the Queen Mary, headed to New York, she is traveling with Charlie, the man who said he could get her on Broadway. 

On the ship she makes the acquaintance of the Abernathy family a very rich and dysfunctional family. When the elderly patriarch, Frances Parker, of the family dies, there is a lot of suspicion as to who did it, because it definitely was murder. Then there is Jack Abernathy who is cheating on his wife with Mr. Parkers caregiver. Jacks' wife, Eliza, rich and pampered but also neglected by her husband. Then there is Carrie, the youngest child of Jack and Eliza. This is a family that has lots of secrets. 

When there is another murder, Lena starts to think that she is also in danger. The narrator that at this point the reader is not told who it is, appears to be the murderer, of Tommy and also the murders on ship. Can Lena stay safe and not be accused of the crimes.

Lena also meets Will, a musician on board the ship who performs above and below decks. He is black but Lena who can pass for white end up having a shipboard romance. There are a lot of characters to keep track of and who they are in relationship to others.

I found the mystery on board ship to be interesting, the intrigue and danger you could feel as you read. The ending kind of threw me off a bit, never saw that coming! The reader learns quite a bit of Lena's backstory and who she is and what she inspires to be. 

I think that if you enjoy a good shipboard story, you should give this one a try! I give it 4 stars.

I received a copy of the book for review purposes only.