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. There’s one particular scene — I cannot say much, because it’s spoiler — where a character tells something huge to our dear Lena and the whole thing is so badly written I actually had to stop and send a rant audio to Vitt, because it was so dumb. It took a little for me to warm up to the story line, but as secrets unfold, you will quickly be turning the pages and enjoying the hustle and bustle. Lena’s iffy moral choices lend the novel a touch of noir moodiness but also make her a difficult protagonist for me to attach to. The book also switches timelines (multiple times) between the current trip on the Queen Mary and the events of a week before.

A brilliant murder mystery, it also explores class, race and pre-WWII politics, and will leave readers reeling from the beauty and power of it. Her new theatre boss wants her to make herself known on the crossing and to get to know the wealthy passengers, but Lena feels out of her depth. If Charlie Bacon really started to annoy me, then I'd simply lock myself away in my cabin until we reached New York and emerge fresh faced and ready to dazzle Benny Walker.Pay him too much attention and he'll extricate himself in a heartbeat, as the fedora lady had found out. I looked around and congratulated myself on my timing, darting forward to grab a table as a couple vacated it. The book takes place on the Queen Mary in 1936, with flashbacks that take place in London a few weeks prior to the scenes on the Queen Mary. she’s not a heroic figure, but who can blame her for putting herself first in a world where no one else does?

It doesn’t disappoint and really has the feel of an Agatha Christie novel and not just from the plot either, but the glamorous location, the wealthy passengers and the sumptuous descriptions of their clothes and jewellery. I had found a spot at the quieter end of the Promenade Deck, several stories above the fierce white-capped waves. Instead, she’s stuck singing in a sticky-floored basement club in Soho, and her married lover has just left her.Lena is interesting because her skin tone, her parentage, her profession, and her current mission, not to mention the liminal state that everyone exists in while at sea, all place her in a nebulous state that allows her to talk to everyone. Once on board the Queen Mary in first class, Charlie manages to secure a place at the dinner table of a very wealthy family.

This is one of those mysteries where I suspected everyone of everything by the end, assuming ill intent and secret motives on behalf of the whole cast. The opulence of the setting, the fashion and Lena’s new wardrobe are dazzling and so perfectly in tune with the time period. It did fall apart a bit towards the end and I did find it a little too long but I enjoyed it overall and the author certainly captured the atmosphere of the era and presented some fairly well rounded characters. Set in the 1930s, its the story of Lena Alridge, a mixed race Jazz singer in her 20s working in a seedy little club in Soho London. The ship brushed the waves aside as gracefully as the women of Hampstead danced their breaststroke across Kenwood Ladies' Pond.The cabin-class smoking room was set out like the lobby of a luxury hotel, its walls lined with huge surrealist paintings.

They exchanged a few words, but I saw his gaze wander as she talked, her conversation slowing to a trickle as she realized he wasn't listening. It was a petty attempt to teach him a lesson, but I craved a moment of control; the last few days had been like a nightmare, one where I was falling from a great height, my legs kicking, hands grasping at thin air.After a murder at the club, the timing couldn’t be better, and Lena jumps at the chance to escape England. A man who solved problems, a former New York police detective now working as assistant to a Broadway impresario named Benny Walker. From past experience, I wasn't sure that I liked olives very much, but Charlie already thought me naive on several counts, a state of affairs that I wasn't keen on.