Joined in 2023 
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63 About this deal
As Will observes its okay for the black men of the band to entertain the rich and white, but not to fraternise with them and he’s very careful that he and Lena are not seen together. Even though Lois told me this book had no connection with either Ella Fitzgerald or the song Miss Otis Regrets, I downloaded the audiobook from my local library, and I'm glad I did. Central to events on the liner is the wealthy Abernathy family who Lena meets on the first night on board the luxury ship. He lit his own cigarette and leaned next to me on the railing, still slightly too close for comfort.
The dynamics in this book take on quite a few different directions, which include morality, alcohol and drugs, racism, class distinction, the unfairness that some women face and much more. She covers up a murder, she uses cocaine, she lies, she drinks heavily, and she’s kind of a crappy friend.
Knowing that she needs to leave London and that it is an opportunity of a lifetime, she accepts and travels in comfort to New York on the Queen Mary. I had left London that morning, catching the boat train down to Southampton and holding my breath at each station stop until I was sure that the police wouldn't suddenly appear, hot on my trail. I stared down into the churning water, wondering how long it would take for an object to hit the surface if it fell from such a height. 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.
Lena is a sympathetic character, who has sacrificed the start of her own career to care for her father Alfie who has recently died after a long illness. I must admit I doubted that, as a witness to a sudden death, she would be allowed to travel abroad but, that was just my first concern with the plot and I was, at least at first, willing to go with it. Also maybe not that much of a mystery, cause i think alot of people might have guessed who the killer was since the author was trying hard to misdirect but overall engaging and i liked the time spent reading this book. The book is split into two different periods, the ship crossing and 2 weeks previously and the lead up to the murder.The contradiction that the band are allowed to entertain first class passengers, but not sit with them, is something that will stay with me. Lena has always been able to ‘pass’ because she is so light skinned, but later when she sees Will again she trusts him a little more and owns her identity. The story itself was lacked lustre or intrigue, which I had expected for a whodunnit set in the 30's on a cruise liner. There are three more things which I found extremely annoying: the first one is that the two main mysteries were linked, but the link was once again so dumb and unbelievable it made me roll my eyes; the second one is also due to this fact and it’s that the motive of the murderer was stupid and not well explained at all. Some of my all times favourite mysteries are set on ships or trains and Agatha Christie herself was a master at writing them.
Speaking of which, this book is almost 400 pages long at it has multiple “mysteries” to solve, but really… Nothing happens for most of it. 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. The dynamics between the family are vividly portrayed and we have everything from wealthy gilded cages to philandering. Lena was one of many that knew about it but chose not to report it – not only for her own protection but because the owner, Tommy, was bribing the police anyway. After the death of her friend’s husband, the club manager, she is offered a dream job on Broadway and travels aboard the HMS Mary Queen to get to New York.There’s a sense in which she doesn’t feel like herself, sailing on someone else’s charity, in grand society and not even in her own clothes. There are many intrigues and assignations on the voyage, people die unexpectedly from foul play, and family secrets are exposed.
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 received an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review via Netgalley; this does not affect my rating nor my opinions in any way. The events on the liner present us with a ‘locked liner mystery’ and parts of this are very good and feel very Christie-esque which fits nicely with the 1930s timeline. The third and last one is that there was a romance subplot that didn’t add anything to the main plot, and was also instalove-y.
After a murder at the club, the timing couldn't be better and Lena jumps at the chance to escape England.
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