DEAD DEAD GIRLS

During the Harlem Renaissance, a young Black woman searches for a serial killer and finds her adult identity in the process.

In the winter of 1916, teenage Louise Lloyd is abducted from the streets of Harlem and thrown into a room with a handful of other girls. She lashes out at her captor and manages to escape, earning a bit of notoriety and the nickname Harlem’s Hero. Ten years later, Louise frantically dances every night away at the Zodiac speak-easy while living in Miss Brown’s boardinghouse and carrying on a secret romance with Rosa Maria Moreno, who rooms across the hall. Rosa Maria's twin brother, Rafael, the bartender at the Zodiac, gives Louise free drinks. One night, she drinks too much and gets into a scuffle with loutish Officer Martin but is spared incarceration by Theodore Gilbert, a detective who recognizes her as Harlem’s Hero and enlists her help in finding a serial killer who's been preying on young Black women. Fired with a strong sense of mission, Louise strikes out in multiple directions, even investigating her own workplace, Maggie’s Café. Though Louise considers her boss a surrogate mother, Maggie also runs a sleazy nightclub managed by her grandson, where Dora Hughes, the latest victim, worked. The mystery is slapdash, with a series of female victims and suspicion randomly ricocheting among multiple male characters. But Louise’s fight for respect and dignity is depicted with infectious passion.

A promising, if uneven, debut novel (and series kickoff) with a vibrant setting.