Inner City Blues (A Charlotte Justice Novel) (Paperback)

by Paula L. Woods (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In this energetic, tough-talking debut, African American cop Charlotte Justice works the streets during and immediately after the Los Angeles riots following the Rodney King verdict. The action starts when Charlotte rescues a respected black doctor from a certain beating at the hands of her racist colleagues. Troublingly, Dr. Mitchell's excuses for being on the riot-torn streets that night are scarcely plausible. The corpse of Cinque Lewis, a drug dealer, former revolutionary and, by an odd coincidence, killer of Charlotte's beloved husband and daughter, is soon found near the scene of the doctor's arrest. Then Mitchell becomes the victim of a nasty murder. The investigation into his death kicks up allegations of pedophilia; Mitchell, known for charitable work with teens, was hardly the man he seemed. Along the way, Charlotte has to deal with a white fellow officer who throws around terms like "jungle bunny," with a superior officer who pursues her romantically and even with the threat of an Internal Affairs investigation into her actions during the riots. She does, however, manage to reignite a romance with a childhood sweetheart. Woods makes some rookie mistakes: she sometimes strains to maintain a streetwise feel, using terms like "the niggerati" and "incognegro," and her plot, too, can seem forced, as in Charlotte's implausible assignment to the investigation of Lewis's murder. But Woods can also be funny: a forensics officer lifts "prints faster than the Tasmanian Devil on crack." Charlotte's central conflict?between commitments to her work and to her community?isn't entirely fresh, but it adds nuance to her adventures in this promising, if flawed, first offering.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews
When the City of Angels goes haywire following the beating of Reginald Denny, the last person you want to be is a black detective in the LAPD's Robbery-Homicide Division. Charlotte Justice, who's hearing her share of ethnic slurs from the back of the police bus trolling for rioters, gets beaten by her own colleagues when she tries to keep them off Lance Mitchell, an emergency-room doctor they find on King Boulevard past curfew. But Mitchell, a womanizer whose syndicated Love Doctor wife is doing e verything she can to keep their messy divorce quiet, may not be worth Charlotte's trouble, especially when his missing wallet is found under the corpse of Robert (``Cinque'') Lewis, the one-armed revolutionary who vanished after murdering Charlotte's husb and and baby daughter over ten years ago. Charlotte, who still can't bring herself to clean out her late family's things, is glad that her battles on Mitchell's behalf bring her together with Mitchell's boss Dr. Aubrey Scott, her onetime high-school flame , but she isn't ready to let Aubrey as far into her life as he wants to come. Meantime, a trail of fresh casualties leads from Cinque Lewis's Black Freedom Militia to gallery owner Reggie Peeples's program to foster inner-city black artists. What's the co nnection, and how do Charlotte's own department, and Charlotte herself, fit in? Anthologist Woods (Spooks, Spies, and Private Eyes, 1995) puts an African-American spin on Sara Paretsky's trademarks (the broad canvas filled with big events, the tough-as-th e-boys heroine, the gimlet eye for urban corruption) in this important debut. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, L