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A review by jeffburns
Midnight Atlanta by Thomas Mullen
4.0
Midnight Atlanta: Darktown Trilogy, Book 3 of 3. Thomas Mullen. Little, Brown, 2021. 400 pages.
In 2016, crime and thriller fiction writer Thomas Mullen published Darktown, a fictionalized account of the lives and hardships of the first 8 black police officers in Atlanta, hired in 1948. Like the first 8 real men, Mullen's fictional characters were not allowed in the police station, relegated to the basement of a YMCA instead. They were not allowed to wear their uniforms off duty, drive police cars, or question or arrest white Atlantans, and they were only supposed to work in black neighborhoods. Most of their fellow police officers were KKK members or at least sympathizers. Their beat was solely "Darktown," and their creation was largely was largely a political ploy to win black votes after Georgia's racist primary election system was dismantled by the courts.
He picked up their story again with 2017's Lightning Men, which focused on the conflicts caused as black families moved closer and closer to "white neighborhoods," conflicts enflamed by the KKK and by a Neo-Nazi paramilitary hate group called the Lightning Men, for their SS-style emblems. Midnight Atlanta takes place a few years later, in 1956, with the backdrop of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the ascendancy of Dr. MLK Jr to leadership in the growing civil rights movement, and the Red Scare.
Each story is extremely well told and stands as a good mystery thriller. Although Mullen is quick to point out that he is not an historian and doesn't try to be, his work is definitely influenced and inspired by real life and reflects how things were. The fact is, that although Atlanta's civic and business leaders worked hard to create the image of "The City Too Busy To Hate," there was still enough hate to go around.
(The Darktown trilogy's TV and movie rights were purchased in 2016 by Jamie Foxx and has been "in production" ever since. Current status unclear.)
In 2016, crime and thriller fiction writer Thomas Mullen published Darktown, a fictionalized account of the lives and hardships of the first 8 black police officers in Atlanta, hired in 1948. Like the first 8 real men, Mullen's fictional characters were not allowed in the police station, relegated to the basement of a YMCA instead. They were not allowed to wear their uniforms off duty, drive police cars, or question or arrest white Atlantans, and they were only supposed to work in black neighborhoods. Most of their fellow police officers were KKK members or at least sympathizers. Their beat was solely "Darktown," and their creation was largely was largely a political ploy to win black votes after Georgia's racist primary election system was dismantled by the courts.
He picked up their story again with 2017's Lightning Men, which focused on the conflicts caused as black families moved closer and closer to "white neighborhoods," conflicts enflamed by the KKK and by a Neo-Nazi paramilitary hate group called the Lightning Men, for their SS-style emblems. Midnight Atlanta takes place a few years later, in 1956, with the backdrop of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the ascendancy of Dr. MLK Jr to leadership in the growing civil rights movement, and the Red Scare.
Each story is extremely well told and stands as a good mystery thriller. Although Mullen is quick to point out that he is not an historian and doesn't try to be, his work is definitely influenced and inspired by real life and reflects how things were. The fact is, that although Atlanta's civic and business leaders worked hard to create the image of "The City Too Busy To Hate," there was still enough hate to go around.
(The Darktown trilogy's TV and movie rights were purchased in 2016 by Jamie Foxx and has been "in production" ever since. Current status unclear.)