Inner City Blues: Paula L. Woods

From the description of this book at W. W. Norton:

Meet Detective Charlotte Justice, a black woman in the very white, very male, and sometimes very racist Los Angeles Police Department. The time is 48 hours into the epochal L.A. riots and she and her fellow officers are exhausted. She saves the curfew-breaking black doctor Lance Mitchell from a potentially lethal beating from some white officers — only to discover nearby the body of one-time radical Cinque Lewis, a thug who years before had murdered her husband and young daughter. Was it a random shooting or was Mitchell responsible? And what had brought Lewis back to a city he'd long since fled?

Published in 1999, Paula L. Woods' debut novel won the Macavity Award for Best First Mystery in 2000. This is an excellent mystery which also gives us a look at what it felt like to be on the police force protecting the city during the riots and what it felt like to be black during that time of heightened tensions over racial disparities in the legal system.

I am not overly fond of detectives that come into a book with baggage, and Charlotte has a lot of that. She lost her husband and young child in a drive-by shooting, and ten years later she is still mourning them. Yet she is proud to be a police detective, even though the choice wasn't a popular one with her upper class parents and siblings. She is a believable and sympathetic character. Some of the harassment by male officers that comes her way is as much because she is a woman as that she is  black. I like the way Woods uses the structure of the mystery novel to insert subtle social commentary without preaching.

I have a weakness for series that use song titles for the book title. Two others I like are Martin Edwards' Harry Devlin series and Ed Gorman's Sam McCain series.

These are the remaining titles in the Charlotte Justice series:

Stormy Weather (2001)
Dirty Laundry (2003)
Strange Bedfellows (2006)

In Stormy Weather, Charlotte investigates the death of black film director Maynard Duncan, a pioneer in his field. I look forward to seeing where that story takes her.


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Publisher:  Fawcett, 2002. (orig. pub. 1999)
Length:     318 pages
Format:     Paperback
Series:      Charlotte Justice, #1
Setting:     Los Angeles
Genre:       Mystery
Source:     Purchased at Planned Parenthood book sale, 2015.

Annual Book Sale Purchases, Part 1

This year was the 43rd Planned Parenthood Book Sale, which goes on for approximately 10 days. We attended the first Friday (I always take the day off from work and this year my husband did too), Saturday and then both Saturday and Sunday of the next weekend. Each year is a bit different, at least in the mystery section, but on the second Saturday several boxes of older vintage paperbacks appeared and I picked up quite a few of those.

However, this post is concentrating on a few of the more contemporary books I picked up.

The Torso (1999) by Helene Tursten

From the review at Publishers Weekly:

In Swedish author Tursten's outstanding second police procedural to feature Irene Huss of the Göteborg Violent Crimes Unit (after 2003's Detective Inspector Huss), the discovery of a dismembered corpse initiates a frustrating chase for a wily serial killer.

I don't like books about serial killers, but I want to read more of this series set in Sweden. This book was the 2nd published in English, but Night Rounds precedes it and I have a copy of that so I plan to read that one sometime soon.

Ah, the confusion of foreign language series being published out of order. Such fun.

A Beautiful Place to Die (2008) by Malla Nunn

Now we move to South Africa. From the publisher's site:

Award-winning screenwriter Malla Nunn delivers a stunning and darkly romantic crime novel set in 1950s apartheid South Africa, featuring Detective Emmanuel Cooper -- a man caught up in a time and place where racial tensions and the raw hunger for power make life very dangerous indeed. 

In a morally complex tale rich with authenticity, Nunn takes readers to Jacob's Rest, a tiny town on the border between South Africa and Mozambique. It is 1952, and new apartheid laws have recently gone into effect, dividing a nation into black and white while supposedly healing the political rifts between the Afrikaners and the English. Tensions simmer as the fault line between the oppressed and the oppressors cuts deeper, but it's not until an Afrikaner police officer is found dead that emotions more dangerous than anyone thought possible boil to the surface... 

Adios Muchachos (2001) by Daniel Chavarría

From the Akashic website

The first suspense novel in English-translation by internationally acclaimed Uruguayan mystery writer Daniel Chavarría, Adios Muchachos is a dark, erotic, brutally funny romp through the sexual underworld and black-market boardrooms of post-Cold War Cuba. Seen through Chavarría’s compassionate but uncompromising eyes, present-day Havana is a crossroads for petty hustlers looking for an easy mark, two-time losers looking for a fresh start, and high-rolling international speculators looking to take advantage of them all.

This may be outside of my comfort zone, but I will find out and let you know.

Stormy Weather (2001) 

by Paula L. Woods

From the AudioFile site:

Detective Charlotte Justice of the LAPD investigates the peculiar death of African-American film director Maynard Duncan against a backdrop of Hollywood glamour, greed, and lost opportunities.

I read Inner City Blues by Woods earlier this year and was glad to find two more books in the series at the book sale.

In this series, Charlotte Justice is a black female policewoman in Los Angeles in the 1990's. Themes of how women and especially black women are treated in the police force are explored in Inner City Blues. I look forward to finding out what the remaining books cover. 

The Sirens Sang of Murder (1989) 

by Sarah Caudwell

Description from Goodreads:

Young barrister Michael Cantrip has skipped off to the Channel Islands to take on a tax-law case that's worth a fortune–if Cantrip's tax-planning cronies can locate the missing heir. But Cantrip has waded in way over his head. Strange things are happening on these mysterious, isolated isles.

Third in Sarah Caudwell's series about Professor Hilary Tamar, who is friends with four young London barristers. I have read the first book and I have copies of all of the books, but this hardcover copy appealed to me.

The Mistletoe Murder and other stories (2016) by P. D. James

From the dust jacket of the book:

As the acknowledged queen of crime, P. D. James was frequently commissioned by newspapers and magazines to write a special short story for Christmas. Four of the best of these are collected here for the first time. Swift, cunning murder mysteries (two of which feature the young poet-detective Adam Dalgliesh) that together–to borrow the author's own description–add up to a delightful "entertainment."

Reading in December 2016

I read seven novels in December.

I read one book for the Sci-Fi Experience, hosted by Carl at Stainless Steel Droppings. That was The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick, an alternative history set in 1962 after Nazi Germany and Japan won World War II. Although I have planned to read this book for a long time, I was motivated to read it at this time because I have been watching the TV adaptation produced by Amazon Studios.

I will have more to say about the book in a future post but I can say the book was stunning, although it was not what I expected, especially based on the TV episodes. Having read this book, I want to try more of Philip K. Dick's novels and also his short stories.

As usual, most of my reading during the month was crime fiction. Here's the list:

• Inner City Blues by Paula L. Woods:  Quoting from The Black Female Detective in Mystery Literature at Martin Hill Ortiz's blog:  "Misogyny and racial tension are up-front and center as Det. Justice is plunged into the midst of the "Rodney King" riots and becomes involved in solving the mystery of who killed the man who killed her husband and child. The internal politics and prejudices of the LAPD make a formidable, albeit uncomfortable, backdrop to the novel which went on to win the Macavity Award and spawned three sequels."
• Christmas is Murder by C. S. Challinor:  A contemporary country-house mystery, set at Christmas. Review HERE.
• Kill Now, Pay Later by Robert Kyle:  This is the book I read for the Crimes of the Century meme for December, hosted at Past Offences. Published in 1960. Review HERE.
• Cursed to Death by Bill Crider:  The 3rd mystery to feature Dan Rhodes, Sheriff of Blacklin County, Texas. It was published in 1988. Review HERE. 
• Capital Punishment by Robert Wilson:  This is the start of a series starring Charles Boxer, former homicide detective who has becom a kidnap consultant. Set in London. The mechanics of the business of kidnap response is interesting. 
• The Alamut Ambush by Anthony Price:  The 2nd book in the Dr. David Audley series, published in 1971. Audley features in some way in each book, but some of the books are from the viewpoint of other characters who work with Audley. This time Squadron Leader Hugh Roskill is at the forefront.