Rodney Page

LANGUAGE AND RACIAL CONTENT PERSPECTIVE FOR MATURE READERS ONLY! In early 1960s Macon, Georgia, an African American R&B singer and band leader has come back to his hometown to perform as his career has begun to rise in the recording industry, but after a drug infused disastrous performance at a local club, he and a fellow band member are shot dead while sitting in a car in a nearby hotel parking lot. The immediate aftermath brings pressure on the white mayor and police chief to quickly solve the case by driving the chief detective to create evidence in order to indict a patsy black man, keeping within the poor black community in order to prevent racial tensions, but an editor of the local paper, a black police officer, and another connected man in the community come together to try and uncover the truth, contrary to the racial pressure around them. Even though there is a central mystery to this novel, the basic premise of the novel is a deep look at the racial divide in a very “deep south” city at the time when civil rights was on the verge of breaking wide open. The author’s use of limited omniscience over a wide range of characters opens the reader up to a broad division of racial and class entitlement and prejudice with a taste of a biracial relationship caught in the middle, a perspective that may be very difficult for some readers to handle. The story pace moves fast, which is mainly a pleasure, but some readers will be tasked to keep track of the large cast of characters presented. For those who can maintain a balanced and neutral perspective, the story is enlightening within the historical time in which it takes place.… (mehr)