Harlem After Midnight: A Canary Club Mystery

Hare’s second mystery featuring 1930s jazz singer Lena Aldridge (following 2022’s Miss Aldridge Regrets) adds depth to the already-memorable characters introduced in the first installment. In 1936, an unnamed woman falls to her death from a New York City window. Harlem patrolman James Freeman learns the woman was visiting Claudette and Louis Linfield, who’d been hosting a large party in the apartment she fell from. A passport belonging to Lena—who was at the Linfields’ soiree, having just moved to New York from London—is retrieved from the victim’s hand, leading to Lena’s questioning by police. As the investigation unfolds, flashbacks reveal how she came to know the Linfields and recount the story of her late father, Alfie, with whom she used to dream about moving to New York. Hare is particularly good at conveying Lena’s confusion as she unearths the family secrets her father kept from her, complicating her perfect image of the man. The main investigation is less exciting than the mystery in the prior book, but the dive into Lena’s roots allows Hare to enrich her cast’s emotional world. Readers more interested in characters than clues will be pleased. Agent: Nelle Andrew, Rachel Mills Literary. (Aug.)