Publisher's Weekly Review
Mullen (The Revisionists) uses the lens of a twisted murder mystery to unsettle readers with his unflinching look at racism in post-WWII Atlanta. That city has just hired its first black police officers, but the eight men given the responsibility for guarding black neighborhoods are still relegated to second-class status. For example, they're barred from wearing their police uniforms when traveling to and from court to testify. One of those officers, Lucius Boggs, ends up being responsible for a sensitive murder investigation after Brian Underhill, a drunken white man, drives his car into a lamppost in a black neighborhood. Underhill was released without charge by the white officers who showed up at the scene, but Lily Ellsworth, the black woman who was his passenger, is found dead later on, abandoned in an alley like a piece of trash. Underhill's status as a former cop and the low value placed on black lives make the probe into Lily's death a perilous one, for both Boggs and a white officer who's uneasy with his department's violent racism. This page-turner reads like the best of James Ellroy. Agent: Susan Golomb, Writers House. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* To be one of the first black policemen in 1948 Atlanta was to endure constant reminders of second-class status. Black officers (called the Negro Police at the time), weren't allowed to ride in squad cars, walk in the front door of police headquarters, or arrest white people. Mullen shows us these official rules; he also depicts the shameful way white officers routinely treated black officers in a host of wrenching details. This police procedural not only illuminates just how black officers were treated but also uses historical detail to set the racist stage (like the fact that black neighborhoods were, as a matter of policy, consistently without streetlights or routine garbage pickup). The story centers on two new black officers, Boggs and Smith, who come across an older white man whose Buick has crashed into one of the first streetlights on the wrong side of town. The young black woman with him flees the scene and is later discovered beaten to death and dumped in an alley. While the premise of many mysteries involves police investigating in the wake of official silence, Mullen employs this familiar theme specifically to shine a light on the embedded racism of the times. Boggs and Smith persist in trying to uncover the woman's murderer, pushing against the rules and confronting dangers posed by resentful white cops. Mullen's writing is extremely evocative in bringing the pre-civil rights South to life.--Fletcher, Connie Copyright 2016 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Mullen's latest (following The Revisionists) travels back to pre-civil rights Atlanta in 1948, when the police department is forced to integrate despite violent resistance. The first black cops are not permitted to drive a squad car or make arrests, face overt contempt from their white colleagues, and limit their territory to the area known derisively as Darktown. On patrol one summer night, new officers Lucius Boggs and Tommy Smith discover a young black girl fatally shot and discarded like garbage. They had previously seen her in the car of a white man who assaulted her, but Lionel Dunlow, the ranking white officer who responded to their call, released him. Risking their precarious careers, Boggs and Smith try to find justice despite lacking any investigative power. The case soon expands to implicate fellow officers and even a congressman, but the duo may have a tentative ally in rookie white policeman Dennis Rakestraw, who despises his partner Dunlow's brutal racism but has yet to stand up to it. VERDICT As his previous historical novels have proven, Mullen is skilled at bringing the past to life, both socially and visually (a TV adaptation produced by actor Jamie Foxx is already planned). Some readers may brace against the routine use of epithets, but fans of well-written literary thrillers will want this expert example. [See Prepub Alert, 3/14/16.]-Michael Pucci, South Orange P.L., NJ © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
