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From
Publisher's Weekly
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Wood
redefines L.A. urban noir as an explosive blend of race
relations, politics and murder in her third installment
(after Stormy Weather) of the award-winning Charlotte Justice
series, which follows the career of an African-American
LAPD detective after the 1978 gang-related murder of her
husband and son. Fast forward to 1993, 11 months after the
riots, to an L.A. still struggling with post–Rodney King
tensions. Justice, now assigned to Robbery Homicide, is
investigating the murder of Vicki Park, a young Korean campaign
worker for Mike Santos, a former news anchor who is now
a mayoral candidate. On her first case since a suspension
for her part in “the mishandling of a confessed murderer,”
Justice, along with Det. Billie Truesdale, has to work alongside
some “female-hating, trash-talking cowboys,” but solving
the crime unites them in a common purpose. Woods’s gift
for realistically depicted police work, tight plotting and
succinct characterization serves her well, notably with
angry, self-righteous African-American patrol supervisor
Tony Brackeen and Asian Task Force Det. Young “King” Kang,
who introduces Justice to the workings of Koreatown’s underside.
Justice’s visits to her family’s “Nut House” for folksy
consultations and her rushed moments with boyfriend Aubrey
round out this satisfying, fast-paced police procedural.
Its only flaw may be that the rush to “justice” is too swift,
and that the plot threads—the suspicious suicide of a former
Japanese WWII criminal living in L.A.; the enigma of Park—could
have been developed further.(July 1)
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From
Booklist
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Charlotte Justice,
an African American homicide detective in the LAPD's elite
Robbery-Homicide Division, is part of another elite crew,
that of fictional women cops who are multidimensional and
fun to watch. Justice has a tragic past: her husband and
infant daughter were murdered years back. Woods gives us
a convincing portrayal of a grieving widow and mother without
stooping to an easy, formulaic use of Justice's tragedy.
In the latest in the Justice series..., L.A.'s Koreatown
is shaken by the discovery of the body of a well-known young
Korean woman, a campaign strategist for a mayoral candidate.
It is a high-profile case, and Justice must slog through
messy city politics, her colleagues' infighting, and the
Korean community's hostility to police in an investigation
that grows both uglier and more threatening every day. Riveting."
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From The Chicago
Tribune
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The
Los Angeles crime scene certainly has its share of public
and private superstars, everyone from Michael Connelly's
Harry Bosch to John Shannon's Jack Liffey. But what Paula
Woods does better than anyone in her books about Charlotte
Justice is to show just how hard it has always been to be
an honest, effective, black, female police detective in
a system that undervalues virtually all of those qualities.
It's 1993, not quite a year after the Rodney King riots,
and Justice is finally back at work after a suspension caused
by the bloody mess detailed in "Stormy Weather." She and
her partner, Billie Truesdale, inherit the murder case of
Vicki Park, a young Korean woman working as a campaign aide
to a Hispanic TV anchor running for mayor.
" `That's your and your girlfriend's job now,' " jokes Neidisch,
one of the detectives, to Justice. "I could almost see the
steam rising off of Billie," Justice tells us. "Neidisch
had made the identical, albeit wrongheaded, inference about
my relationship with her when I'd had a run-in with him
last Thanksgiving. . . . I glanced at Lieutenant Bianchi,
who had suddenly gone deaf, and then at Lieutenant Graydon.
Her blue eyes conveyed sympathy, but that was about all;
Neidisch was part of the Wilshire Division's detective table,
and therefore in Bianchi's chain of command, not hers."
With supervisors like those, Justice can't expect much official
help when the Park case takes several dangerous and unexpected
turns. Buoyed as usual by the support of her extended family
and friends, Justice gets through it all, barely--leaving
us to wonder yet again at the end if she can bear to return
to what is in fact the only job she knows.
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From the Sun-Sentinel
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Nearly
everyone has a bit of Dirty Laundry they'd prefer to keep
quiet. But when it comes to politicians, dirty laundry seldom
is private; it's practically announced on interstate billboards.
That's one of the situations facing L.A.P.D. detective Charlotte
Justice when she and her team investigate the murder of
a campaign strategist for Mike Santos, a former news anchor
who looks primed to become the city's first Latino mayor.
The high-profile case is exacerbated by the fact that the
murdered woman, Vicki Park, was viewed as a role model in
the tight-knit Korean community. Her part in the campaign
was meant to endear Santos and his platform to the Korean
residents.
But with 24 candidates trying to replace the city's black
incumbent, the mayoral race has been rife with dirty tricks.
Charlotte navigates her investigation along two routes --
the city's political structure and the Korean area where
13 merchants have been killed in the past month. The case
is further complicated by the fact that the Korean neighborhood
is openly hostile to police and blacks. These suspicions
are intensified since both Charlotte and her partner, Detective
Billie Truesdale, are black. This antagonism threatens the
investigation as well as the lives of the cops assigned
to the case.
Author
Paula L. Woods' knack for creating a forceful look at Los
Angeles' ethnic enclaves excels in the intriguing Dirty
Laundry. In the third novel in her series, Woods elevates
the plot with strong detours into the changing faces of
L.A.'s myriad neighborhoods. Charlotte muses on the transformation
of a struggling neighborhood, "whose very architecture clashed
-- down-on-their-luck Chandleresque apartments at war with
weary Craftsmen bungalows and crumbling sixties complexes,
the latter infiltrating the neighborhood during one of the
city's many misguided tear-down crazes." Set in 1993, when
L.A. is in the midst of rebuilding 11 months after the Rodney
King riots, Dirty Laundry gives us a look at our immediate
past and contemporary life, from the inner workings of Koreatown
to Charlotte's upper-middle-class family. Woods adds to
the tension by focusing on the bureaucracy and prejudice
in the police department. The politics that swirl around
the mayoral race parallel the politics that undercuts the
police force. Being black and female in the elite Robbery-Homicide
Division has often left Charlotte vulnerable. The Park murder
is her first case since being suspended for her role in
"the mishandling of a confessed murderer." That Billie is
a lesbian spurs more problems for the two detectives from
the force's "female-hating, trash-talking cowboys."
The sharply defined Charlotte continues to grow through
her work and personal life. On the job, her skills as an
investigator sharpen. At home, she tries to sort through
her feelings for an appealing doctor while not letting go
of the grief she still carries for her husband and child
who were murdered more than 15 years ago. Unlike her previous
novels, Dirty Laundry concentrates more on Charlotte's work,
making the scenes of her personal life and the conflicts
with her elitist mother more poignant.
A solid core of supporting characters inhabits Dirty Laundry.
Often-distrustful Billie is a good addition to Charlotte's
team. A self-righteous black supervisor and an Asian cop
who maneuvers Charlotte through the Korean community are
realistically portrayed.
Woods, who edited the anthology Spooks, Spies and Private
Eyes: Black Mystery, Crime and Suspense Fiction of the 20th
Century, delivers a briskly paced police procedural that
never falters in Dirty Laundry
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From
the San Francisco Chronicle
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"Woods has
a knack for getting inside the turbulent inner workings
of a big-city police department."
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From Bookreporter.com
|
Police
work involves quite a bit more, alas, than fighting crime.
There is, and always has been, a political and cultural
element to it as well as the tide of different ethnicities
ebb and flow into and out of a city. This is hardly a recent
development; Irish police resented the influx of Italian
officers into the New York City and Chicago police ranks
during and after the turn of the 20th Century; the New Orleans
Police Department for years roiled with the uneasy mixing
of Italian and French South Louisiana officers, who in turn
had to adjust to the inevitable but overdue influx of black
officers into the ranks. Race of the officers is not the
only factor which affects a police department, however.
Nor is it the size of the city the department patrols. There
is a municipality within spitting distance of my residency
that has made national headlines by virtue of the fact that
it exists solely to support its police department, which
writes traffic tickets by the handful, in order to support
its police department, which writes traffic tickets by the
handful, in order to...well, you get the idea.
Most police procedural novels lead the reader painstakingly
through the evidence-gathering process and while they may
touch on the internal and external politics of the department
that touch is light and almost incidental. That is not the
case with the Charlotte Justice novels. Justice is a black
homicide detective in the LAPD Robbery-Homicide Division.
Her creator, Charlotte Woods, has carved out a series in
which Justice and her supporting characters are constantly
evolving, making mistakes, paying for them, and moving on.
The crimes which are investigated usually take place off
the page, though the violence which is transmitted through
the crime scene description to the reader is certainly graphic
enough. Woods' major accomplishment, however, is to nicely
balance her description of the crime-solving procedure against
the backdrop of the political and social factors which affect
how, and in some cases whether, the crime is investigated
and the wrongdoer apprehended.
DIRTY LAUNDRY, the latest of Woods' Charlotte Justice novels,
begins with the grisly discovery of a murder in a transient
area of Koreatown. The victim is quickly determined to be
Vicki Park, an up-and-coming political assistant to mayoral
candidate Mike Santos. There is no lack of suspects, from
Park's fiancee to members of Santos' campaign staff to,
surprisingly enough, members of the Los Angeles Police Department.
Park, it seems, was a bit of a maverick, a Korean working
on the campaign of a Hispanic mayoral candidate, and as
it turns out did not approve of some of his campaign tactics.
Yet, there were other mayoral candidates that did not approve
of her own work as well. Justice finds that her investigation
is hamstrung by opportunists in the police department, political
realities ---she can investigate candidates, but not too
closely --- and even to some extent by her personal life.
It is almost a foregone conclusion that solving Park's murder
will have some effect on the mayoral campaign. When the
identity of the murderer is revealed, it should not be a
surprise, but it is a very big one.
DIRTY
LAUNDRY, surprisingly contains echoes of some of Raymond
Chandler's best work, in the sense that Woods, like Chandler,
utilizes her well-crafted storylines as a vehicle for commenting
on the culture of Los Angeles. Reading Woods is like walking
down the sidewalk of a neighborhood that you would, at best,
only drive through, if you knew that it existed at all.
The difference is that once you take one of Woods' tours
you will keep coming back.
Given
the fresh publicity that accompanies the publishing of DIRTY
LAUNDRY Woods she begin getting the attention her work needs
and so greatly deserves. DIRTY LAUNDRY is a gritty, haunting
work that is intriguing the first time through and which
will no doubt stand up to repetitive readings.
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From I Love
a Mystery
|
I
have found on a consistent basis that most authors who come
through with a great debut mystery struggle and fall apart
when they try to match or even step up the ladder with their
second, let alone, third book.
Paula Woods is an exception to this general rule. Ms. Woods
keeps building on her trademark storyline style as she continues
to sharpen her writing skill in DIRTY LAUNDRY. Ms.
Woods' mysteries are secondary to what she is really conveying,
a look at the hodgepodge of Los Angeles communities and
its causal connection to the inner push and tug of the Los
Angeles Police Department. This view is self evident by
her insistence that the book covers clearly state "A Charlotte
Justice Novel" and not "Mystery" as was erroneously found
in the initially printed covers of her first novel, INNER
CITY BLUES.
In her superb debut, INNER CITY BLUES, Ms. Woods
introduces the reading audience to Charlotte Justice, a
detective assigned to the prestigious Robbery and Homicide
Division of the L.A. Police Department. Detective Justice
is driven to find the felons whether or not she breaks rank
with the upper brass and politicians of the fine and smoggy
city of Los Angeles, very much like Harry Bosch in Michael
Connelly's popular mystery series. We are invited into Justice's
upper echelon black family home, appropriately called the
Nut House. "The name we kids gave our house had its origins
in a family story of how, when my walnut-toned father was
introduced to my fair-skinned mother, he said: I'm just
a nutty Negro, but would you be my Almond Joy?" The reader
drives along with Charlotte Justice through the Los Angeles
black and burnt out communities while Ms. Woods' protagonist
investigates the murder of her husband's and daughter's
own murderer, a one-time radical. The Los Angeles riot of
1992 is the backdrop to this novel.
Ms. Woods' opens her second and equally insightful story,
STORMY WEATHER, with a potent statement that sets
the tone of the entire novel: As Charlotte's mother would
ask the Justice children, what was the meaning of a film,
likewise what does one learn about death? "Point is, you
never know how death will slap you upside the head, or what
a homicide investigation will uncover about the victim,
the suspects or yourself." In exploring this theme, Charlotte
Justice, during the post-Los Angeles 1992 riot rebuilding
period, struggles to solve the possible murder of a respected
black director from the golden years of movies, while hampered
by internal L.A. Police racist and sexual harassment hurdles,
and of course, local politicians. On top of everything else,
Justice continues down the excruciating path of trying to
move on with her personal life, still haunted by the devastating
1978 deaths of her husband and daughter.
In
Paula Woods' third installment of her Charlotte Justice
series, DIRTY LAUNDRY, the author starts this riveting
story a few months after STORMY WEATHER and again
with a philosophical point: "Only when we face death do
we see our lives clearly." Several months after the 1992
L.A. riots, Detective Justice and her friend and new partner,
Billie Truesdale, are called in to investigate a murder
of a female victim found in Koreatown during a Los Angeles
mayoral race. The investigation has a trying effect on Charlotte
Justice, professionally and personally. There are several
other story lines and twists that Ms. Woods throws into
the murder caldron and neatly ties together, including Los
Angeles Police Department corruption, Asian gangs, the interplay
of different police departments and Charlotte's coming to
terms with the loss of her husband and daughter. More so
in this novel than in the earlier installments, DIRTY
LAUNDRY is fast paced and action packed. I could not
put the book down without turning one more page.
You
can read DIRTY LAUNDRY as a standalone, although
I strongly recommend that you read the first two Paula Woods
novels to appreciate Charlotte Justice as an individual
and as a female black detective during one of the worst
times in Los Angeles history. I look forward to Ms. Woods'
next book!
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From AOL Book Report
|
|
Police work involves quite a bit more, alas, than fighting crime.
There is, and always has been, a political and cultural
element to it as well as the tide of different
ethnicities ebb and flow into and out of a city. This is
hardly a recent development; Irish police resented the
influx of Italian officers into the New York City and
Chicago police ranks during and after the turn of the
20th Century; the New Orleans Police Department for
years roiled with the uneasy mixing of Italian and
French South Louisiana officers, who in turn had to
adjust to the inevitable but overdue influx of black
officers into the ranks. Race of the officers is not the
only factor which affects a police department, however.
Nor is it the size of the city the department patrols.
There is a municipality within spitting distance of my
residency that has made national headlines by virtue of
the fact that it exists solely to support its police
department, which writes traffic tickets by the handful,
in order to support its police department, which writes
traffic tickets by the handful, in order to...well, you
get the idea.
Most police procedural novels lead the reader
painstakingly through the evidence-gathering process and
while they may touch on the internal and external
politics of the department that touch is light and
almost incidental. That is not the case with the
Charlotte Justice novels. Justice is a black homicide
detective in the LAPD Robbery-Homicide Division. Her
creator, Charlotte Woods, has carved out a series in
which Justice and her supporting characters are
constantly evolving, making mistakes, paying for them,
and moving on. The crimes which are investigated usually
take place off the page, though the violence which is
transmitted through the crime scene description to the
reader is certainly graphic enough. Woods' major
accomplishment, however, is to nicely balance her
description of the crime-solving procedure against the
backdrop of the political and social factors which
affect how, and in some cases whether, the crime is
investigated and the wrongdoer apprehended.
DIRTY LAUNDRY, the latest of Woods' Charlotte Justice
novels, begins with the grisly discovery of a murder in
a transient area of Koreatown. The victim is quickly
determined to be Vicki Park, an up-and-coming political
assistant to mayoral candidate Mike Santos. There is no
lack of suspects, from Park's fiancee to members of
Santos'
campaign staff to, surprisingly enough, members of the
Los Angeles Police Department. Park, it seems, was a bit
of a maverick, a Korean working on the campaign of a
Hispanic mayoral candidate, and as it turns out did not
approve of some of his campaign tactics. Yet, there were
other mayoral candidates that did not approve of her own
work as well. Justice finds that her investigation is
hamstrung by opportunists in the police department,
political realities ---she can investigate candidates,
but not too closely --- and even to some extent by her
personal life. It is almost a foregone conclusion that
solving Park's murder will have some effect on the
mayoral campaign. When the identity of the murderer is
revealed, it should not be a surprise, but it is a very
big one.
DIRTY LAUNDRY, surprisingly contains echoes of some of
Raymond Chandler's best work, in the sense that Woods,
like Chandler, utilizes her well-crafted storylines as a
vehicle for commenting on the culture of Los Angeles.
Reading Woods is like walking down the sidewalk of a
neighborhood that you would, at best, only drive
through, if you knew that it existed at all. The
difference is that once you take one of Woods' tours you
will keep coming back.
Given the fresh publicity that accompanies the
publishing of DIRTY LAUNDRY Woods she begin getting the
attention her work needs and so greatly deserves. DIRTY
LAUNDRY is a gritty, haunting work that is intriguing
the first time through and which will no doubt stand up
to repetitive readings.
-Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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