Harlem Renaissance Mystery #3
- Genre: Mystery, Historical Fiction
- Published by: Penguin Publishing Group (physical), Berkley Publishing Group | Berkley (e-book)
- Publish date: July 30, 2024
- Number of pages: 336 pages
- Author’s website: https://www.nekesaafia.com/
- Support local! Buy the book on BookShop!
Louise Lloyd’s time away in Paris is everything she was hoping it would be until a shocking murder turns her entire world upside down.
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.
Rating: 3/5
The third in the series ( I have linked my review of the first two books below), I recommend reading the first two in order to understand how the characters know each other and their motivations. I was so excited to see that Louise, after a string of hardships in Harlem, was moving to Paris for a fresh start! This is in line with other prominent expats during the Harlem Renaissance. Advertised as historical fiction, I find that this novel is lacking in depicting race. Yes, things were better in Paris than the US but the characters move as if race doesn’t exist. There are no other African American characters that have a significant influence in the novel and the main character is treated almost as an equal or only her sex is a barrier despite her meddling in an investigation. It’s a little perplexing and took me out of the story. I think I need to go into this series moving forward as if there is a little bit of revisionist history and let the character exist in the world the author has created rather than put her in this time-period I have studied.
Instead, we focus primarily on a group of white artists, a secret society of women skilled in various artistic mediums. The mystery is certainly interesting, one of their own is missing and her mother has reached out to Louise’s friend to ask her for her aid. There are several suspects– her loveless, cheating husband; a fellow (though less talented artist) who is having an affair with her husband; and her lover (yet another woman artist).
Some smaller parts of the story concern Louise’s relationships back home— her friends, her sisters, and her ex-girlfriend. They are part of the story via letters with a couple of her friends visiting her in Paris later in the novel, but Louise almost treats the letters like mosquitos that she keeps swatting away. I couldn’t understand why Louise didn’t read the letters but as readers of the books we do. We see how concerned they are and how much they love her but Louise never reads them. This feels unresolved to me in the novel. Yet, she reads and researches extensively about the dead woman. A lesser part of the novel is Louise’s love life–still healing from her break-up, she finds herself attracted to two women in Paris. I wanted more time to explore these relationships.
Perhaps, the author is setting us up for the next in the series, but overall, I was unsatisfied with the mystery, the obvious person-of-interest, and the main character’s lack of development. Despite this review, I am still invested in this series and hope it continues!
Have you read this book? What are your thoughts? I’d love to know!
I received an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this book from Netgalley and Berkley Publishing Group | Berkley. This has not impacted my rating and this review is voluntary.
Musings by Michelle 