Following an unforgettable cast of characters and a jaded female P.I. enmeshed in a criminal conspiracy in 1980s Mississippi, The Queen City Detective Agency is a riveting, razor-sharp Southern noir that unravels the greed, corruption, and racism at the heart of the American Dream.Meridian, Mississippi—once known as the Queen City for its status in the state—has lost much of its royal bearing by 1985. Overshadowed by more prosperous cities such as New Orleans and Atlanta, Meridian attracts less-than-legitimate businesses, including those enforced by the near-mythical Dixie Mafia. The city’s powerbrokers, wealthy white Southerners clinging to their privilege, resent any attempt at change to the old order.Real-estate developer Randall Hubbard took advantage of Meridian’s economic decline by opening strip malls that catered to low-income families in Black neighborhoods—until he wound up at the business end of a .38 Special. Then a Dixie Mafia affiliate named Lewis “Turnip” Coogan, who claims Hubbard’s wife hired him for the hit, dies under suspicious circumstances while in custody for the murder.Ex-cop turned private investigator Clementine Baldwin is hired by Coogan’s bereaved mother to find her son’s killer. A woman struggling with her own history growing up in Mississippi, Clem braves the Queen City’s corridors of crime as she digs into the case, opening wounds long forgotten. She soon finds herself in the crosshairs of powerful and dangerous people who manipulate the law for their own ends—and will kill anyone who threatens to reveal their secrets.
My Review:
The Queen City Detective Agency comes out next week on August 13, 2024, and you can purchase HERE!
From Clem's beat-down, soft-top Jeep, which she'd inherited after her father took on crop shares at Parchman Farm and which she now drove, Clem told herself, out of spite more than sentiment, Clem watched stock footage of her past life. It still hurt to see the police department on Twenty-Second Avenue, where, during her rookie year and maybe three of the five subsequent ones, she'd genuinely believed the boys in blue could be man enough to accept a woman. It hurt worse to see Highland Park, site of her career-making and, ultimately, career-ending collar, a serial killer the papers relished calling the Dentzel Carousel Strangler.
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