enidsorko 's review for:

Darktown by Thomas Mullen
3.0

This story had a lot of potential. The story centers around the first black police officers in Atlanta in 1948- I did a bit of research after I finished the book, and the information presented in the book was accurate. They did have to use the Y as their base; they coudln't arrest whites; they patroled black neighborhoods; etc. That part of the book was very interesting. However, the mystery itself left a bit to be desired. Some of the scenes seemed to be needlessly violent and graphic. But my main problem was the way the author would do things like say, "And then she told him two things, and the second thing made all the difference", and then switch to another set of characters. The reader wouldn't learn what that second bit of information was until much later in the book, making it very difficult to try to solve the mystery. This is the same sort of thing that makes me unable to read Sherlock Holmes mysteries.