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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.