Harlem After Midnight (A Canary Club Mystery)

Written by Louise Hare
Review by Valerie Adolph

Lena Aldridge, a multi-racial woman from London, is visiting Harlem for the first time in 1936. On the voyage over on the Queen Mary, Lena had met Will Goodman, the ship’s bandleader. Their whirlwind romance extended to her staying as a guest with Will’s longtime friends, Claudette and Louis Linfield. For the sake of propriety, Will is staying with his sister Bel and her 10-year-old daughter, Joey.

Comfortable in the warmth of the Linfield home, Lena explains her purpose in visiting Harlem – to learn more about her parents, who had lived there thirty years earlier. But the novel opens with the discovery of a woman’s body on the steps outside the apartment. From the moment the woman’s identity is discovered, it is apparent that there are secrets in Will’s family and friendships, just as there have been secrets in Lena’s own family.

Slowly, these mysteries are revealed, and tension increases as Will is accused of the murder. The author skillfully interweaves the backstory of both Lena’s and Will’s families, with flashbacks to the previous generation. Intrinsic to the novel are the nuances of Harlem during the early 20th century, when Black people moved to the area from the South. These subtleties are deftly woven into a tightly paced plot and give it dimensions that go beyond the obvious.

In this novel, the author, herself multi-racial, has provided insights that last far beyond the pleasure of reading a deeply involving historical mystery.