Darktown by Thomas Mullen

Darktown by Thomas Mullen is listed as a mystery and although there is a mystery in it, the book is more about race relations in Atlanta in the 1940s. It takes place shortly after the end of WW II. As an experiment, the mayor of Atlanta has recruited eight Black cops to patrol primarily the Black neighborhoods. Although they wear uniforms and carry guns, their authority is quite limited. They can’t arrest white people. They can’t carry on an investigation. There are more ‘can’ts’ than ‘cans’.

Enter Lucius Boggs and Tommy Smith, Black beat officers. One night walking their beat, they see a car driven by a white man strike a lamppost, causing it to tilt. There is a Black woman in the car as well. The driver continues on. Boggs and Smith call for white back up which arrives in the form of veteran Officer Dunlow and rookie Office Rakestraw. After a pursuing the driver and brief discussion, the driver is free to go. Boggs, Smith and Rakestraw are aghast that the driver was not given a ticket.

When his female passenger winds up dead the next day, intuition points to the driver of the car. However, no one seems inclined to pursue this line of inquiry. Boggs and Smith decide to investigate on their off hours. Rakestraw also starts a little investigation of his own.

The meat of Darktown is the hatred of the white officers of their Black coworkers, the hatred of whites against Blacks in general. The idea that the new recruits should be driven from the force, that they are not ‘real cops’ at all is evident from their separate office in the basement of the Black YMCA to their limited authority.

Darktown is some ways reminds me of Cop Town by Karin Slaughter which coincidentally enough takes place in Atlanta but in the 1970s and deals with the hiring of the first female police officers. While the hatred shown in Cop Town isn’t has bad as that shown in Darktown, the animosity was evident. I also find the similarity in titles interesting.

So, to sum up..if you’re a mystery fan and interested in a little history on the side, both Darktown and Cop Town are worth a read.

 

 

 

 

 

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Out of the Blues by Trudy Nan Boyce

Sarah Alt (aka Salt) has just been promoted to Detective-Atlanta Homicide Squad. As the only female on the day shift, and known to typically work alone, almost as a hazing ceremony she is given the 10 year old cold case of blues singer Mike Armstrong’s death. Originally ruled an accidental drug overdose, there is new evidence, in the form of convicted felon Dwayne Stone’s testimony, that Armstrong was intentionally given a ‘hot dose’ of heroin. However, it is Stone who shot Salt a year ago, from which she still carries the physical and emotional scars. Stone will be trading his information for a reduced sentence and Salt will be working towards that goal when corroborating his testimony…another emotional scar.

Salt carries other emotional scars as well, especially that of finding her policeman father’s body after his shotgun suicide when she was nine years old.

When Salt’s cold case intersects with a recent high profile murder, everyone gets involved, from detectives to narcotics to SWAT and the action builds up.

Out of the Blues by Trudy Nan Boyce attracted my attention because of its blues orientation and apparently Atlanta was a hot spot of early blues activity. In an era when hip hop and rap are at the top of the charts, the popularity of the blues seems to be declining and the plight of the old bluesmen is going virtually unnoticed, Boyce brings it to the forefront. Readers can visualize the dusty, dirty clubs that the book’s rag tag blues band is forced to play in. One of the characters is a down on her luck, homeless former blues singer.

Boyce’s (a former police officer) debut novel is a great start for a series, which I hope this is. She’s has a great set of characters in Salt, her detective boyfriend Wills and their dogs, the transgender desk sergeant, Rosie, Thing One and Thing Two, etc. There is an adequate split between police procedural and action. All the characters are believable. The book has an evangelical bent to it, which is not one of my favorite subjects, but it wasn’t an overpowering slant to the book.

While Boyce’s prose are a little hard to follow/read at times, Out of the Blues is still quite readable, maybe a little slower read, but readable. Her descriptions, especially blues related sounds or feelings, are a little over the top, kind of like she went to writing school and this is what they taught her…not naturally flowing is probably a better way to describe it.

While I don’t normally give star ratings, I’d probably give Out of the Blues three and a half stars. Boyce has the characters and plot down, now she just has to make the words flow more smoothly. I’d definitely read her next book and am actually looking forward to it.

 

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Cop Town by Karin Slaughter

Having never read anything by Karin Slaughter prior to Cop Town, I have to give her credit for one thing right off the bat: She certainly has the talent for creating despicable characters.

It is 1970s Atlanta and Maggie Lawson is one of a handful of female police officers. None of the male officers want women on the job, including her brother Jimmy and her uncle Terry. There has been a rash of cop shootings recently and Terry and Jimmy don’t have time to watch out for Maggie. Additionally, it is felt that the women can’t add anything valuable to the investigation.

Partnered with, Kate, an FNG, (Fucking New Girl) from a posh neighborhood, no less, Maggie still wants to be part of the investigation but everyone thinks Kate will wash out by week’s end. When Jimmy’s partner is shot, with Jimmy close by, the murders are brought even closer to home. Everyone in the Lawson household is telling Maggie to resign. Both Kate and Maggie have something to prove to themselves and everybody else.

As I said, Slaughter has created some despicable characters, especially in the police department. Many of the males are veterans of either WW II or the Vietnam War, depending on their ages. They are anti women, anti Black, anti gay, anti everything that isn’t exactly like they are. They are habitually drunk on the job and prefer their own justice to that of the legal system.

Maggie and Kate are interesting characters, stumbling through their jobs, trying to compete in a man’s world.

Slaughter does a nice job describing the various sections of Atlanta. She also does a great job describing the police department of the times; the segregation within it (the ‘colored girls’ dress after the white girls leave the locker room and have put a curtain across it, claiming their own territory), the sexism within the department (the groping as the women enter the building) and the ‘taking the law into their own hands’ mentality.

All in all, I really liked Cop Town and would certainly read another Karin Slaughter book.

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