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.
Two Heads Together 