Monday, August 05, 2024

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: The Queen City Detective Agency: A Novel by Snowden Wright


Fans of strong female characters will want to make the acquaintance of Clementine Baldwin. Owner and principal investigator of the Queen City Detective Agency, Baldwin is a native of Meridian, Mississippi, and knows most of its secrets. The daughter of a white man and a black woman, she has a love-hate relationship with her home town. Never quite fitting into either black society or white social circles, she has learned to navigate along the edges of both.

Set in January 1985, against the backdrop of the approaching inauguration of Ronald Reagan for his second term as president, Baldwin is retained by the mother of a man convicted of shooting a local real estate developer. Mrs. Coogan is convinced that her son was murdered despite plenteous evidence to the contrary.

The local authorities found the death of Coogan convenient and the resolution of the death of an unpopular real estate developer along with it, so they were increasingly forceful with their attempts to discourage Baldwin from asking awkward questions. Some of the best parts of the book is watching their attempts backfire, sometimes spectacularly. Lurking in the shadows of Baldwin’s investigation is the Dixie Mafia, that organized crime mob headquartered in Biloxi, Mississippi, operating throughout the South with ties to the Ku Klux Klan and the white male hierarchy.

Unexpectedly dark in places and just as unexpectedly funny in others, this book is a strong piece of Southern noir, highlighting as it does the push to bring new ways to the South and the resistance offered by the long-time power structure, unwilling to loosen its iron grip on the status quo. Followers of Ace Atkins’s Quinn Colson books set not far away in northeastern Mississippi will want to read this one, as will those interested in stories about people of color pushing to force change from within the South.

Starred review from Booklist. 


·       Publisher: William Morrow (August 13, 2024)

·       Language: English

·       Hardcover: 272 pages

·       ISBN-10: 0062963589

·       ISBN-13: 978-0062963581

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4dMESH1 

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2024

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night. 

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