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3.97 AVERAGE
3.97 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
My first foray into crime fiction. Essentially it's about the murder of a young mixed race girl and the attempts of one of Atlanta's black police officers to solve it. Problem is, it's 1948 and the few black policemen have very little authority and are viewed with contempt by their fellow white officers. For me the racism and the murder weren't integrated with sufficient artistry to make this compelling. The racism was dealt with in a very formulaic way and never quite as angering or heartbreaking as it might have been. Partly this was due to the rather uninteresting cast of characters. I'd describe it as competent rather than inspired. The kind of novel that probably would be more successful as a movie. I did quite enjoy it but it won't live in my memory.
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
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:
No
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Känns väldigt trovärdig, intressant mordhistoria. Dock hade jag lite problem med språket i boken. Länk till hela recensionen: https://ewelinasbokblogg.blogspot.com/2018/12/darktown.html
This book was so well written. The racially divided city is a place where being on the wrong side could get you killed. Encounters between blacks and whites in this story had me cringing and holding my breath. Atlanta officials had a good idea to implement black officers to patrol their own streets, since white officers have no interest in patrolling crime ridden Darktown. Giving these black cops almost no rights, just a badge and gun, makes doing the job correctly almost impossible. Atlanta is a city where blacks still have virtually no right and whites have no issue reminding them of this fact. White cops don’t drawn a distinction between the criminals in Darktown and the black cops themselves.
The mystery of who killed the girl is the foundation of this story. The investigation, which shouldn’t of even happen since the white cops decided to pin it on the girl’s step-father, takes us deep into racially divided territory. Boggs and Smith are beat cops, not investigators, and black cops to boot. They have no business investigating this murder, even though the body was found on their beat. The same goes for white rookie officer Rake, who finds his partner’s dealings with black citizens corrupt and disgusting. Although the author makes Rake somewhat of a hero, he has no experience investigating and even less experience with black people.
Although this story is a work of fiction, it is impossible not to think about what it was actually like for the first black officers in Atlanta.
This story started slowly but managed to keep my attention throughout. There were a few tension filled scenes that didn’t do much to move the story along, but did add depth to the characters. Even with those small flaws I can still see why this story has been picked up by Sony, and the author has decided to make this story a series of books. I was completely invested in this story and I highly recommend people pick this up. This is not light light reading, it is eye opening. Darktown is a damn close look at what racial discrimination looks like and what ‘policing’ really means.
In Darktown, Officers Boggs and Smith are 2 of Atlanta's first black police officers, patrolling the streets of Atlanta's segregated black neighborhoods in 1948. Part-crime novel and part chronicle of a our nation's not-so-distant dark past, Darktown is a compelling pageturner.
A really interesting story of the first Black Atlanta police officers. I should have read this when it came out a few years ago. I am looking forward to reading the second book in the series. It will be interesting to see who of the police officers the story will center around.