BLACK CAMELOT’S CHOICES

Racial tensions continue to mount as assassination attempts across U.S. cities become more brazen in this installment of Myers’ thriller series.

New Yorkers Donald Alexander, Kwame Mills, and Sammie Rivers have found success as businesspeople of color. The media dubs them the Black Camelots, and white supremacist groups like Before Emancipation and Michigan Whites target them and their loved ones. (On the Camelots’ side is a private army, the Society of Protectors.) The ongoing race war in America has seen casualties. The latest strike is a second assassination attempt on Republican presidential candidate and unabashed racist Digby Yates in his Tennessee hometown; Before Emancipation then responds in kind by killing two people with close ties to the Black Camelots. While numerous people see merit in taking out Yates, California senator Janet Bivens, the Democratic presidential candidate, is wary, fearful that such a bold move would further escalate the race war (“She fears, rightfully, that his death would make him a martyr”). Others immersed in the civil and political unrest include various journalists, police detectives, and The Voice, the Society of Protectors’ mysterious leader. Readers familiar with Myers’ series will know what to expect—ongoing subplots are tied off and new threads begun. Some storylines feel detached from the main narrative but involve returning characters affected by all that’s unfolded in the previous books. (For example, socialite Flower White shops for a new house; she’s getting away from Yates, her estranged husband, who instigated the murder-for-hire that inadvertently killed Flowers’ beloved sister.) This installment evenly spotlights the cast members and their absorbing stories (Donald suffers a recurring nightmare; Kwame’s wife, Michelle, has a startling confession). The narrative moves at a speedy tempo, and there’s no doubt by the end that the author has more sequels in the works.

This seventh outing continues to entertain with suspenseful turns and engaging characters.