Harlem After Midnight (Canary Club Mysteries, 2) - Hardcover

Buch 2 von 2: Canary Club Mysteries

Hare, Louise

 
9780593439289: Harlem After Midnight (Canary Club Mysteries, 2)
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0593439287 ISBN 13: 9780593439289
Verlag: Berkley Pub Group, 2023

Inhaltsangabe

Named a Must Read by Ebony · Boston Herald  · Book Riot  ·  Bookish  · Minneapolis Star-Tribune and more!

A body falls from a town house window in Harlem, and it looks just like the newest singer at the Apollo...in this evocative, twisting new novel from the author of Miss Aldridge Regrets.

Harlem, 1936: Lena Aldridge grew up in a cramped corner of London, hearing stories of the bright lights of Broadway. She always imagined that when she finally went to New York City, she’d be there with her father. But now he’s dead, and she’s newly arrived and alone, chasing a dream that has quickly dried up. When Will Goodman—the handsome musician she met on the crossing from England—offers for her to stay with his friends in Harlem, she agrees. She has nowhere else to go, and this will give her a chance to get to know Will better and see if she can find any trace of the family she might have remaining.

Will’s friends welcome her with open arms, but just as Lena discovers the stories her father once told her were missing giant pieces of information, she also starts to realize the man she’s falling too fast and too hard for has secrets of his own. And they might just place a target on her back. Especially when she is drawn to the brightest stage in town.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Louise Hare is the London-based author of Miss Aldridge Regrets. Her debut novel, This Lovely City, was published in the UK to wide acclaim, and was a Between the Covers Book Club Pick on BBC Two. She has an MA in creative writing from the University of London.
 

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1

Tuesday, 8 September 1936

I'd been in the apartment for only fifteen minutes but already it felt like home. The bedroom that would be mine for the next fortnight was perfect; I might never want to leave. The bed was immaculately made with blue cotton sheets and a pristine white comforter tucked into the foot, the floor made of the same sturdy varnished wood that ran through the entirety of Claudette and Louis Linfield's home. Clean towels had been folded and placed on a cozy navy blue velvet armchair that sat in the ideal position, in a corner close to the window, where I could sit and catch the last rays of sunshine at the end of the day. Claud had even laid out a selection of her favorite books on the bedside table to ensure I had something to read before going to sleep. She was a librarian by trade, so I supposed the habit ran deep.

"You about settled in?"

Claud Linfield had a constant easy smile. Even though she and her husband had been complete strangers only a couple of hours earlier, I already felt that there was no place safer in the whole of New York than in this cozy apartment.

"Yes. Thank you." I moved to let her join me at the window, looking down into the street that was so different from the narrow London streets that I was used to. Wider, the buildings far taller, everything just that little bit bigger and brighter than back at home. "It's so kind of you to let me stay. I know that I could have stayed on at the hotel, but-"

"Hotels are for those without their own people," she told me. "Far as I'm concerned, you're with Will and that makes you family. He's as good as a brother to me and Louis."

Will Goodman. The reason I was in Harlem and no longer a resident of the luxurious but impersonal Sherry-Netherland hotel. We'd met on the voyage over from England. A cliché of a story: I had been a passenger; he was the bandleader, playing to the rich and famous every night in the Starlight Lounge on the HMS Queen Mary. It had been quite the voyage, and the addition of a whirlwind romance had left my head spinning. Perhaps it was foolish to throw my lot in with a man I'd only just met, but I trusted Will. There were so many others whom I couldn't, so when he'd offered to arrange for me to stay with friends of his, I'd agreed without a second thought.

"You all grew up around here, you and Louis and Will?" I could see a group of young boys playing down in the road, shrieking and laughing loudly, until a woman stuck her head out of a window across the street and called out a warning for them to keep it down. Some things weren't so different from home.

Claud nodded. "Went to the same school, and Will and Louis went to college together."

"Really? I didn't know that." Louis was a pediatrician at the local hospital. Had Will studied medicine as well? Doctor to musician was an odd career change.

"Come through, Lena. I know you English love your tea, but I hope coffee will do." Claud left the room before I could quiz her about Will.

Will and Louis were already in the lounge, and they had both chosen to drink beer. The Linfield lounge induced further envy. High ceilings and tall windows, the sashes lifted to let in a breeze and offset the warmth of the early September evening, the fading light bathing the room in a natural glow. An unlit fireplace sat center stage with a sofa and two armchairs arranged around it.

We were three stories up, at the top of what had once been home to a single family. Now the Linfields lived above two other couples. An older doctor friend of Louis's, a mentor from his medical school days, owned the building and occupied the ground floor as well as running a private practice from the basement. Above him lived his son, a dentist who shared the basement business with his father, and his wife, along with their small son. I was yet to meet them, but it struck me that yet again I was among people whose lives were very different from my own. I had left school with the bare minimum of qualifications; in my world they had never seemed that important. I was never going to be a doctor or a dentist or a teacher. Those occupations just weren't for people like me. Or so I had thought.

Claud and I took the sofa, with the men already settled in the armchairs. They might have been brothers, Louis and Will. They sat in the same way, one leg straight out, the other bent with their beer bottle resting on the thigh. On the ship, Will had always been dressed in a formal suit, his bandleader persona permanently on display. Now he had dressed down in looser, wide-legged trousers, his shirtsleeves rolled up and no tie in sight. He looked right at home, and I felt my breath catch in my throat as he looked up at me and smiled.

"So, you two met at sea, huh?" Louis was speaking to me but grinning at Will. I could guess what he was thinking. I'd been worried about what they'd think of me, a woman of loose virtue, but it seemed as though Claud and Louis weren't the sanctimonious type.

Will took a swig of his beer. "I already told you, didn't I? Lena and I got to talking since she's a singer. Same line of work. Just a shame the job she had lined up fell through."

"All this way for nothing?" Louis shook his head. "A real shame. At least now you get to have a vacation. Do the tourist thing and see the sights."

"That's true." I took the cup of steaming coffee that Claud handed me and I wondered when it would be acceptable, if ever, to ask for a beer like the men. "I managed to get a ticket back to England in a fortnight, but until then this city is my oyster. Thank you again for putting me up. It's really very nice of you."

"I, for one, am just thrilled to meet a friend of Will's," Claud told me. "We hardly see him these days, and when he does show up, it's just a flying visit, no news to report." She aimed this dig directly at Will, who shuffled uncomfortably in his chair.

"Will doesn't bring many friends home, then?" I avoided his gaze as it shifted to me. Of course I wanted to know. If he made a habit of bringing women back to Harlem, better I found out now.

"Lord no! You're the first in the whole time he's been working on the ships. How long is it now-five years? Six?"

"Too long." Will's tone made it clear he wasn't in the mood for Claud's teasing.

"Too long," Claud agreed. "It really is nice to know that he's not been as lonely away at sea as I've been imagining."

Louis's laugh was wheezing. "Oh, come on, now!" he said as Will began to protest. "We're only teasing. It's what friends do, isn't it? No need to take it so serious."

Will looked almost shy as he glanced at me. "I don't want Lena to get the wrong impression, is all."

"That you're a man who doesn't share his affections with every girl who crosses his path? I'd think that'd be a good impression to make." Claud eased the barely-sipped-from coffee cup from my hand. "You want something a bit stronger than that, don't you, Lena? I can tell." She got up to go to the kitchen, barely more than an alcove that had been sectioned off from the lounge.

I looked guilty enough to cheer Will up. "Lena, Claudette Linfield is my best friend, as good as a sister and a mother too, plus a mind reader to boot. You're in safe hands with her."

"But you do have a sister as well?" I was trying to remember what he'd told me in a rush as we'd temporarily parted at the port the day before. A reminder that I really didn't know very much about him, nor he me.

What I did know was that Will usually stayed with the Linfields when the ship was docked in Manhattan. However, on this occasion, in order to preserve my reputation (though it was far too late for that) he would stay with his sister overnight before returning to the port in time to sail the next day. Stepsister, I reminded myself-he'd...

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Verlag
Berkley Pub Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2023
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0593439287
ISBN 13 
9780593439289
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
344
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

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