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Miss Aldridge Regrets deserves recognition every bit as much as the books from Golden Age crime writers like Agatha Christie because it’s so well written. Drawn in… and thrown off the scent Lena Aldridge is a singer in a seedy London jazz club where the owner has just been murdered right under her nose and said club owner just happens to be the husband of her best friend Maggie.
The book opens she is on stage, singing when her boss/ her best friend’s husband Tommy Scarsdale dies in front her eyes. He’s poisoned and she might be involved with the murder. Hare's well-crafted second novel oozes glamour . . . Did someone mention Agatha Christie? Yes, but with the bonus of subtle reflections on race and class' Observer The pacing is also wrong, I don’t know what the editor was thinking when they said yes, this is good, no need to change anything. Really, I had to read multiple useless description of what the MC was eating and drinking or how she was dressed and the character + mystery building were practically non-existent. I understand it’s historical fiction and probably the author wanted to set the tone, but it was too much tone and too little actual substance. The motivations behind the deaths should be more convincing. One is fairly easy to guess, and dropped without much fanfare after you find out what happened, but the others seemed more farfetched and needed more groundwork established. It’s such an exciting, riveting historical fiction meets thriller- whodunnit mystery that fully enjoyed and devoured in one sit that I highly recommend!Lena is a complex character, both strong and vulnerable. She makes the reader wonder exactly how they might respond, in her place, to the events that befall her. This one was enjoyable overall. I suppose its a murder mystery and it did have the feel of an Agatha Christie novel at times but I saw it more as a social commentary piece and the prejudice of not only race but also class and indeed sex. A fabulous Christie-esque mystery. Brilliantly written, so evocative, and keeps you guessing all the way through' Charlotte Levin, If I Can't Have You
The book was engaging and it held my attention throughout. I was eager to find out who had it in for Lena and why. The plot certainly has a murder-mystery feel to it. Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. Its also a book about self discovery and its all wrapped up in this murder mystery format which is quite a lot to take in.
The glittering RMS Queen Mary. A nightclub singer on the run. An aristocratic family with secrets worth killing for. I have to confess that the resolution of this mystery left me confused. I understood who did it, but I didn’t understand why, or why said person changed their mind about a particular, crucial element of their plan at the last minute. Lena, however, true to form, makes all of her decisions from a place of self-protection from the beginning of the book to the end. From the standpoint of standard storytelling, she’s not a heroic figure, but who can blame her for putting herself first in a world where no one else does? After a murder at the club, the timing couldn't be better and Lena jumps at the chance to escape England. Until death follows her onto the ship and she realises that her greatest performance has already begun. After a murder at the club, the timing couldn’t be better and Lena jumps at the chance to escape England. Until death follows her onto the ship and she realises that her greatest performance has already begun.
Lena has nothing to lose and this offer can save her from her biggest predicament ( a person of interest of a brutal crime) The most richly accomplished of the brothers’ pairings to date—and given Connelly’s high standards, that’s saying a lot.Since they are usually what influences my rating the most, let’s talk about the characters first. The main character, Lena, was so stupid I wanted to scream at her. Literally scream at her to wake up. I don’t care that the book was set in the 1930s, she had a kind of life up untile the point where the book starts that you’d think she would know how to use her brain. Apparently not, and it was so damn frustrating reading from her point of view. Especially since it was obvious she shouldn’t have trusted some people she barely knew. All the other characters were mostly useless and one dimensional, beside their name and like one characteristic each, they didn’t have anything that helped you make them apart. The villains — if you could call them villains — were laughable. Both the mystery on land that the one at sea were so boring and obvious, and the characters did not help make them interesting at all. A fabulous Christie-esque mystery. Brilliantly written, so evocative, and keeps you guessing all the way through." - Charlotte Levin
I kept guessing the identity of culprit: it was not so foreseeable! Mostly I liked the characterization! Lena who is resilient, determined, doing her best to survive in jungle as a mixed race, penniless, hungry, ambitious girl with pure talent. A glamorous historical fiction consists of class differences, raising of Nazism, hard competition at Broadway world, sex traffic of underaged girls, betrayal, cheating, racism, mansplaining mixed with gripping whodunnit mystery takes place in RMS Queen Mary. And of course beautiful forbidden romance was also thrown into equation. Lena has ambition and is resilient. While she supposedly has common sense, she didn’t ask many questions of Charlie Bacon, the stranger with the offer. She accepts things at face value. Is this reasonable given her situation in London? Probably, but she did have alternatives that could have been explored. She’s definitely a flawed character, but she eventually shows growth. Readers become familiar with the main secondary characters overs time through conversations and actions. Considering that this book is not just a historical fiction but a historical mystery, it is definitely a well-layered book that has a lot of intrigue as well as drama. In fact, this book reminded me of Agatha Christie’s book Death on the Nile as the second murder happened while they were on the ocean so it was more than clear that the murderer was on board. That definitely increased the tension and danger in this well-written and captivating read.
Drawn in… and thrown off the scent
The ending! I don't mind what happens, exactly, and I applaud an atypical conclusion. But it just felt like it was underwritten, and certainly I needed more reasoning and feeling behind the choices that are made. And while I also don't mind that Lena is not the detective and largely reacts to things throughout the story instead of acting--this felt right, as a passenger--I do think that at the end, we needed more of an emphatic statement and proactive decision-making from her. Indeed, one of the most important threads that runs through the novel – the racial identity of Lena – couldn’t have been better explored for the era. A strong yet vulnerable heroine I really liked Lena, but the poor girl was always in the middle of something. Someone was trying to harm her, and she had no idea why. So, please avoid this book. It’s not problematic per se (even if there was a bit of slut shaming in my opinion; I know it was set in the 1930s, but some comments could be avoided), but I believe it’s not worth your time. Don’t be fooled by the cover, don’t make my same mistake, and skip on this one. There are plenty of better titles to read, as far as I am concerned, and it’s not fundamental that you read this one. If you want a good mystery set on a ship, do yourself a favour and read Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie.
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