エンジェル・シティ・ブルース

3+ stars. Author did have a feel for the community, the gangs and the police. Story was too close to some of my experiences. Knew the 3 sets of parents of three teens and about their losses to gang warefare.

I would want Charlotte Justice on my side. She’s smart. She’s tough and she takes her sworn duty as an officer of the law with integrity. I know this is fiction but if one tenth of the crap she has to endure is found in police work we are in trouble.

Not the best read ever for law enforcement stories, but still a good read. I am not sure I would be interested in any of authoress' books.

I love a good mystery and Paula Woods has written a winner. Charlotte Justice joins the ranks with other top notch African American female sleuths Tamara Hayle, Blanche White, Star Duvall and newcomer Alex Powell. Our appropriately named heroine is a detective with the LAPD's Homicide Division; she's bright, socially aware and intuitive. Thirteen years ago her husband and baby girl were murdered in the driveway of their home providing Charlotte with a very personal interest in justice being served.
The Justice clan is quite a family, all card carrying members of the black bourgeois; brother Perris a former LAPD cop turned criminal defense attorney; his equally ambitious buppie wife Louise; Charlotte's father, a chemist who has made a small fortune manufacturing cosmetics for black women and Mom Justice, a fair-skinned daughter of an upper crust black family. Charlotte cringes at and often breaks the three Justice rules which are 1. Don't marry anyone too light, or too dark 2. Common is a word that should only be applied to stocks not people and 3. Don't even fix your mouth to say you're in love with some white person.
There are also several other equally interesting and well developed characters, for instance Steve Hightower, Charlotte's supervisor. With his black mother/Jewish father he has no idea who or what he is and is so uncomfortable around black people he's earned the nickname "incognegro." Unfortunately he's making an exception in Charlotte's case almost making Clarence Thomas look like a choir boy. We also have Aubrey Scott, a gorgeous doctor that Charlotte has known almost all her life. She is so smitten with him she can't think straight, which hopefully won't turn out to be a bad move.
Inner City Blues is set in LA during the riots that followed the Rodney King verdict. The man who stole Charlotte's life Cinque Lewis is found dead and Lance Mitchell, a doctor who works with Aubrey, is the main suspect. Charlotte hopes to be able to clear Lance's good name and also find out where Lewis has been hiding for the last thirteen years.
I can't wait to read the second book of the series "Stormy Weather". I've already ordered my copy.
Reviewed by Ruby
APOOO BookClub