These characters get very little depth other than their basic descriptions above, which is too bad – even when secrets are revealed about this family, they don’t progress or change my perception of the family members and staff. To complete the picture of English gentility, there was a grand fireplace at the far end of the room, and they were doing a roaring trade in cocktails from the small bar. Her career in London comes to a screeching halt when her boss, the husband of her best friend, is poisoned while in the audience. When a second murder eerily similar to the one haunting her steps takes place on the ship, Lena is suspicious of how they might be connected and what danger it might mean for her.

The book is split into two different periods, the ship crossing and 2 weeks previously and the lead up to the murder. After a murder at the club, the timing couldn't be better and Lena jumps at the chance to escape England. Instead, she's stuck singing in a sticky-floored basement club in Soho, and her married lover has just left her. But Lena has always had a complicated life, one shrouded in mystery as a mixed-race girl passing for white in a city unforgiving of her true racial heritage.However, the description of an entertainer’s life in Soho and a passenger’s life on the Queen Mary is fascinating, and while Lena is an interesting person who always seems to be either doing or listening to or watching interesting things. These range from Parker’s son in law, Jack Abernathy, whose hands roam inappropriately to his sweet and innocent granddaughter, Carrie.

To think of all the things the author could have done with a setting such as the RMS Queen Mary, it makes me keen on picking up a pen and rewriting the whole book.

With vividly drawn characters, this exciting blend of murder mystery and historical romance is hard to put down once one starts reading. The historical context is well done especially the values of the time, the almost casual institutional racism and the rise of Nazism is there in the background. I had found a spot at the quieter end of the Promenade Deck, several stories above the fierce white-capped waves. The flow of the story was good but it didn't really feel much like Lena was investigating the goings on. Some of my all times favourite mysteries are set on ships or trains and Agatha Christie herself was a master at writing them.

While on the ship,Lena gets the opportunity to learn more about her past and the book shows how she was sometimes able to pass as white and how she played on either side of race depending on how it would benefit her.As Will observes its okay for the black men of the band to entertain the rich and white, but not to fraternise with them and he’s very careful that he and Lena are not seen together.