Book Review: Miss Aldridge Regrets by Louise Hare*

[Ad-gifted] In our next book review, we feature Miss Aldridge Regrets by Louise Hare.

Published by Harper Collins, the book takes us to 1936 – the year that King George the Fifth dies and Crystal Palace gets burnt to the ground – and London is swinging with music, theatre and clubs, unaware of the steady march to war that is stirring across Europe. Not that it matters here – the protagonist Miss Lena Aldridge is a club singer trying to scratch a living from working at her best friend’s husband’s rather seedy venue. Then… a stroke of luck! An old friend of her recently deceased father calls and offers her the chance of a lifetime to hop on a steamer to New York and star in a Broadway show.

Lena, who is eager to leave London after her former boss is assassinated (more on that later) soon finds herself on board the Queen Mary, rubbing shoulders with a rich family whom the agent has singled out to target as sponsors of the upcoming show. But it doesn’t take too long before evil forces are at work: first one and then another death happen in the tightly knit circle of acquaintances, and pretty soon this turns into a full-blown who-dunnit, with nobody above suspicion.

What I thought of Miss Aldridge Regrets

This novel is written in the style of an Agatha Christie thriller. The cast of characters is confined to two locations – Soho and the Queen Mary – and plot is established through a combination of dinner-table conversations and regular flitting between two timelines. Lena on board the ship goes back to Lena in London every second chapter, to rather dizzying effect. In fact, at about page 187 I realised that I had been unable to absorb the characters and plot to such a degree that I had to backtrack and start reading again.

The book is written in the first person. Me, I. Lena. It is interesting to be put in the shoes of a character completely different to me self in so many ways: Lena is a heavy-smoking, heavy-drinking girl, lashed by poverty and pretty grumpy with nearly everyone she meets… and she is hiding her own dark secret. As soon as she gets on board, she throws an intriguing little poison bottle overboard, setting herself up for suspicion from the outset.

At the tender age of 26, Lena is somewhat jaded by life – not least because of losing her beloved father – a black musician who singlehandedly brought her up after her mother ran off. There are a few hints at racial attitudes in the 1930s here. Lena wants to ‘pass’ as a white girl, so she pretends to have Mediterranean ancestry. This leads to a few situations where she is ‘found out’, but nevertheless this doesn’t appear to hinder her too much.

The book is full of social pretence – delivered through the stifling company of the rich family on board – pretty much all of whom are pretending to be somebody or something they’re not. There is a lot of mask-slipping, whether it be clothes, makeup or accents. The ship setting served as a Cluedo board, keeping everything well controlled, and the use of poison, knives and even a bludgeon made it feel very much like Professor Plum in the billiard room.

I felt that in real life, a cynical and streetwise young Lena wouldn’t have jumped at a sketchy job offer from a mysterious man claiming to be her father’s long-lost friend. Any London-born bi-racial woman of the time would probably not be in a rush to head to Jim Crow’s hostile America. As I discover that Lena drops on a wad of cash – equivalent of over £150k today – I am pretty sure if I’d been her I would have given that boat a miss!

By the time I got to the twist, it had all gone a bit bonkers, frankly. Louise Hare could have thrown anything in the mix and I wouldn’t have been surprised. The revelation of the criminal mastermind behind the chaos was a bit of a let-down, but there were some Poirot-like debriefs, delivered by the perpetrators, to explain themselves and sum up events toward the end. It all feels a bit surreal, especially as nobody in charge on the ship seems too bothered by the carnage that is taking place on board.

After over 400 pages of endless food and drink on board a cruise that has lost its purpose before it reaches its destination, I can say this: just sit back and enjoy the ride. Definitely one to read if you like taking your time. In her epilogue, Louise Hare reveals that she wrote the book during the lockdowns, which might account for why it feels from the outset as though we were waiting to get back to normality.

This is a novel that you can pick up and put down at any point and delve back in for some light entertainment. It is not a precisely delivered Agatha Christie, nor a yearning, breathtaking Great Gatsby. But it will do you well on a long ocean voyage – just watch out that you don’t get a pole round your head in the swimming pool!

Where you can get your copy of Miss Aldridge Regrets and how much does it cost?

Miss Aldridge Regrets is published by Harper Collins and you can purchase the paperback copy for £6.59 directly from Amazon while the hardcover retails for £14.99 and the kindle copy is available for £2.99.  Do check Amazon for the latest price as this may change.

About the Book

Publisher ‏ : ‎ HQ
Number of pages : ‎ 432 pages
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0008332624
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 15.3 x 3.2 x 23.4 cm

About the Author

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. This Lovely City was featured on the inaugural BBC TWO TV book club show, Between the Covers, and has received multiple accolades, securing Louise’s place as an author to watch.

Review by: Metia Bethell Egan

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