Drumsticks
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
A New York Times Best Crime Novel of the Year
In the third book in the Nanette Hayes Mystery series, Nan finds a voodoo doll is bringing her some much needed luck...until the doll's maker is murdered and Nan is dragged into the investigation.
Nanette is on the rocks. Heartbroken and alone, she finds what comfort she can in the bottom of a bottle. But her life seems to turn around when she's given a voodoo doll, so much so that Nan seeks out the doll's creator, Ida, to thank her. Unfortunately, the meeting doesn't go so well, and Ida ends up with a bullet in her head.
Guilt-ridden, Nan resolves to get justice for her new friend, only to find that Ida was hiding some dark skeletons in her closet. Now plunged into a dangerous world she doesn't understand, Nan will have to team up with some unlikely allies, like her estranged father, a high school principal, and Leland Sweet, an NYPD officer with whom Nan has some major history. But will Nan solve Ida's murder or fall victim to the same forces that brought her down?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
African-American sax artist Nanette Hayes, a tough New Yorker, returns for her third gig (following Rhode Island Red and Coq au Vin). Nan is as low as she can go--hitting the booze hard, losing contact with friends and drifting until the gift of a voodoo doll seems to change her luck. An unexpected check and a chance to perform regularly at an upscale jazz club rouse her to seek out the voodoo doll's creator, an older woman named Ida Williams, whom she invites on impulse to hear her play. Her good luck ends in opening-night gunfire that leaves Ida dead. The old woman's checkered past, a vendetta among rap artists and an elaborate scam combine to thrust Nan into a maelstrom of violence. In search of answers, Nan finds that she needs her friends--Aubrey, a beautiful exotic dancer, and Justin, a white, witty drag queen. She also needs the help of both her high school principal father, who left her mother to marry a much younger white woman, and gruff NYPD detective Leman Sweet, who proves to be an unexpected guardian angel. Underneath the street trappings and the jazzy, bold sexuality, Nan seems a nice middle-class gal seeking bohemia who instead finds adventure and romance. If Carter doesn't quite convince with this brash first-person narrative, she does manage to entertain.
