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Fictionista, Foodie, Feline-lover

Showing posts with label Darktown. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Darktown. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Thomas Mullen's DARKTOWN, a review



In Thomas Mullen’s novel DARKTOWN,  the murder of a young black woman exposes a secret that goes all the way to the highest levels of Atlanta’s white society.

In post-war Atlanta, LUCIUS BOGGS and TOMMY SMITH are cops. But they’re also black and “Negro policemen” don’t get a lot of respect from either civilians or white cops. Their authority is limited, and whites know flout that limited authority wheneve they feel like it. As when a white man drunkenly plows into a street lamp with a bruised black  woman in the passenger seat and repeatedly ignores Lucius’ polite requests to hand over his license. Instead, he simply denies hitting the light pole and rives away … slowly.

The ongoing information about the black police force and how it was formed and where it is located is dripped into the story as needed (sometimes a bit clumsily) along with information on the racial politics of the time and place. Real-life people are mentioned (including Rev. Martin Luther King SENIOR) and there’s a real feeling of verisimilitude to the story.