|
Nekesa Afia’s sophomore effort, HARLEM SUNSET (Berkley Prime Crime, 284 pp., paperback, $15.99), brings back Louise Lloyd after her unforgettable debut last year in “Dead Dead Girls.” It’s 1927, and Louise still haunts the Harlem speakeasies, managing one of them — the Dove — for the brother of her longtime partner, Rosa Maria.
She cannot live her life openly, true, but within the constraints of life as a queer Black woman, Louise is on the precipice of contentment. But then a woman named Nora, whom Louise met when they were both held captive a decade before, shows up at the club. The next morning she’s found stabbed to death, her blood drenching Rosa Maria, who’s asleep nearby. What follows is another strange trip for Louise as she sets about clearing her lover’s name, discovering the actual culprit and trying to hold in her most closely held secrets — of sexuality, of family, of that long-ago kidnapping. Ever the survivor, Louise bargains for a brighter future. --New York Times on HARLEM SUNSET
|
|
A LETHAL LADY
Paris, 1928
Louise Lloyd is finally living the quiet life she’d longed for, working in a parfumerie by day and spending time with her new friends every night at the Aquarius club in Paris. When a desperate mother asks for help locating her artist daughter, Louise initially refuses to keep her hard-won but fragile peace intact. But the woman comes with a letter of introduction from an old friend in Harlem, and Louise realizes she has no choice but to do what she can to find the missing young woman.
The woman’s daughter, Iris Wright, is part of an elite social circle. Louise soon finds herself drawn into a world of privilege and ice-cold ambition—a young group of artists who will do anything to get ahead—but would they murder one of their own? With the help of some friends from home, Louise must untangle a web of lies, jealousy, and betrayal to find out what really happened to Iris while fighting to keep her new life from crashing down around her.
Louise Lloyd is finally living the quiet life she’d longed for, working in a parfumerie by day and spending time with her new friends every night at the Aquarius club in Paris. When a desperate mother asks for help locating her artist daughter, Louise initially refuses to keep her hard-won but fragile peace intact. But the woman comes with a letter of introduction from an old friend in Harlem, and Louise realizes she has no choice but to do what she can to find the missing young woman.
The woman’s daughter, Iris Wright, is part of an elite social circle. Louise soon finds herself drawn into a world of privilege and ice-cold ambition—a young group of artists who will do anything to get ahead—but would they murder one of their own? With the help of some friends from home, Louise must untangle a web of lies, jealousy, and betrayal to find out what really happened to Iris while fighting to keep her new life from crashing down around her.
