A few mystery novels recommended for August:
“Miss Aldridge Regrets,” by Louise Hare (Berkley)
Jazz Singer Lena Aldridge has just seen her boss murdered in the London dive where she works. So she jumps at the chance when, out of the blue, an American producer offers her a job starring in a Broadway play. The offer includes a first-class ticket on the Queen Mary.
It sounds too good to be true and, of course, it is.
On the ship, Aldridge finds herself assigned to a table with a wealthy New York family. Only the conductor of a jazz band realizes the fair-skinned Lena is half Black. Things start to go wrong when the patriarch of the American family is murdered, and Aldridge realizes she’s been dining with a killer. But who? And why?
Aldridge is a flawed but appealing character as she tries to figure out why she is entangled in a web of murder and deceit.
“The Locked Room,” by Elly Griffiths (Mariner Books)
It probably isn’t a good idea to start a mystery series with Book 14. After all, the author expects you to know something about the characters. Still, “The Locked Room” is a good mystery even if you haven’t met the characters before.
Ruth Galloway, author Griffiths’ sleuth, discovers a photograph among her deceased mother’s things that shows Galloway’s cottage in Norfolk. The funny thing is that written on the picture is “dawn, 1963.” That’s not only long before Ruth bought the house but also a few years before she was born.
Galloway and her daughter Kate are stuck in the cottage when COVID hits. So they’re delighted when a new neighbor moves in next door. Zoe, a nurse, is friendly — maybe too friendly. Galloway is more concerned with the rash of suicides that might not really be suicides that come close to home. Nelson, Kate’s father, is the investigator in charge.
I guess if you’ve read the other 13 mysteries, you know all about the relationship between Ruth, Kate, Nelson and Nelson’s wife. But it may be a bit of a conundrum to a new reader.
“Overboard,” by Sara Paretsky (William Morrow)
While Ruth Galloway is a new friend, V.I. Warshawski and I go way back. I’ve watched her solve some two dozen mysteries.
In “Overboard,” Vic is out with Mitch and Peppy when the dogs discover a young girl lying in a pile of construction debris. Vic calls the cops, who whisk away the teen to her old friend Dr. Lotty’s hospital. The girl, Julia, disappears after being interviewed by a fake cop. Then the hospital roommate is murdered.
Meanwhile, Vic discovers Julia is the granddaughter of a wealthy woman living in a mansion in an industrial area ripe for development. But the woman has been placed in a memory-care facility by her son, Julia’s uncle.
At the same time, Brad, the son of one of V.I.’s adversaries from the old neighborhood, asks Vic to find out why his father’s in trouble.
Of course, the two mysteries are related. Vic finds herself hiding two teens while solving two crimes — three, actually, because Vic’s trying to help the aging members of a Jewish synagogue in danger of losing their building.
It’s all very complicated but, knowing Vic as I do, I’m pretty sure she can handle it.
“In the Dark We Forget,” by Sandra SG Wong (HarperCollins)
How terrifying to wake up drugged and lying on the side of the road, and not know who you are or why you’re there. Maybe whoever left you is out to kill you.
That’s what happens to Cleopatra Li, whose amnesia is total. She’s found by a stripper on her way home from work, then taken to a police station. Police eventually find who she is, but the identification is equally traumatic. Li’s parents, who were staying at a nearby lodge, are missing, and when her brother arrives to claim Li, he tells her that their mother has just won a $47 million lottery. Nice motive for murder.
As Li tries to recover her memory, she learns she was a highly successful executive, fired because she was so difficult to work with. Moreover, her mother dominated her. She and her parents lived on either side of a duplex, which her mother has just sold. Now Li is jobless and will be homeless in a couple of weeks. Soon it’s revealed that that was all a plan by her mother to force Li to move to California with her parents to take care of them.
How does Li prove her innocence when she can’t remember? Maybe she’s guilty after all. Or could it be the father or mother or the brother, Cass, who seems so supportive.
Along with being intriguing, “In the Dark We Forget” is infused with Chinese culture and the obligations of a Chinese daughter.
