Reviews

Inner City Blues by Paula L. Woods

remigves's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

bookwrm526's review

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

pilesandpiles's review

3.0

This book doesn't work that well as a mystery -- the resolution comes out of nowhere -- but I really enjoyed it as an LA novel. Writing in the late '90s, Paula Woods homes in on LA's Black upper middle class around the time of the Rodney King uprisings, setting the plot around Baldwin Hills and other neighborhoods of westside South Central. Woods is especially interested in the role of a Black cop within a community that doesn't think justice comes from cops, as well as how policing as a profession is seen in Black upper-middle-class culture. I think she falls short of any astute insights that feel relevant today, but maybe she picks up that thread to greater results in the subsequent Detective Charlotte Justice books.

Charlotte Justice is a forebear to Rachel Howzell Hall's Detective Elouise Norton. If you enjoy this book, I recommend hers.

tora76's review against another edition

4.0

The first third or so was really exposition heavy, but once it got going I really enjoyed it a lot. Hopefully the other books in the series will be go a little easier on the exposition now that the character's established.