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Fabulous Fiction Firsts #815, Jazz-Age Mysteries

by muffy

last_call_at_the_nightingaleLast Call at The Nightingale * *  by Katharine Schellman (also in downloadable eBook and audiobook) launches her new series (after her Lily Adler Series), set in Prohibition-era Manhattan. 

Siblings Florence and Vivian Kelly spend their days toiling as seamstresses in a dress shop run by a mean owner. While Florence is sensible and practical, preferring to spend her evenings in their squalid tenement room, Vivian escapes to The Nightingale, an underground nightclub where the jazz band plays, illegal liquor flows, and the low light and dance floor welcomes all - from Asian bartender Danny Chin, waitress and singer Bea Henry, Nightingale owner Honor "Hux" Huxley and to  uppercrust Manhattan society. 

One night, on a cigarette break, Vivian discovers a body in an alley behind the club, and she is arrested during a subsequent police raid. An unlikely bail comes with strings - she is to spy on the dead man's family and help find the killer.

“Schellman lavishes many chapters on her colorful Roaring ’20s setting before moving the murder probe to the front burner, an understandable gambit in a series kickoff. Colorful period detail, providing insights into the social and political tenor of the times, might allay the impatience of traditional whodunit fans. Once the action gets started, Vivian nails the clever killer and finds a lover and potential sleuthing sidekick. A colorful period crime yarn with a heroine worth rooting for.” (Kirkus Reviews) 

miss_aldridge_regretsMiss Aldridge RegretsLondon-based Louise Hare’s US debut, (also in eBook and downloadable audiobook) is set largely aboard the glittering RMS Queen Mary, sailing from Southampton to New York.

London, 1936. Lena Aldridge, a mixed-race girl passing for white is barely able to pay her rent singing in a sticky-floored basement club in Soho since her pianist father died a year ago. The dazzling theater career she hopes for might finally be hers when an American shows up offering a starring role on a Broadway show and a first-class ticket on the Queen Mary bound for New York. The timing is perfect considering the sleazy owner  of the club (and married to her best friend Maggie) is murdered right in front of her. 

Seated at a table in Cabin (First) Class with the wealthy and dysfunctional Abernathys, she is drawn into their bizarre family dynamics when the patriarch is murdered in a chilling familiar way. More murders follow and soon, Lena finds herself fighting for her life. 

“The novel's ambiance is spot-on; somewhat like Carola Dunn's Daisy Dalrymple set 10 years later or Marie Benedict's The Personal Librarian. As Lena narrates, switching from the present to the past, readers gain helpful glimpses of her backstory.  With vividly drawn characters, this exciting blend of murder mystery and historical romance is hard to put down once one starts reading.” (Library Journal)

For fans of Nekesa Afia’s debut Dead Dead Girls  (and its sequel Harlem Sunset) and these Jazz Age Mysteries That'll Make You Swing. 

* * = 2 starred reviews

 

 

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