Trouble in Queenstown
A Mystery
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4.2 • 10 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The Shamus Award Winner for Best Hardcover PI Novel
A Nero Award Finalist for Best American Mystery
With Trouble in Queenstown, Delia Pitts introduces private investigator Vandy Myrick in a powerful mystery that blends grief, class, race, and family with thrilling results.
Evander “Vandy” Myrick became a cop to fulfill her father’s expectations. After her world cratered, she became a private eye to satisfy her own. Now she's back in Queenstown, New Jersey, her childhood home, in search of solace and recovery. It's a small community of nine thousand souls crammed into twelve square miles, fenced by cornfields, warehouses, pharma labs, and tract housing. As a Black woman, privacy is hard to come by in "Q-Town," and worth guarding.
For Vandy, that means working plenty of divorce cases. They’re nasty, lucrative, and fun in an unwholesome way. To keep the cash flowing and expand her local contacts, Vandy agrees to take on a new client, the mayor’s nephew, Leo Hannah. Leo wants Vandy to tail his wife to uncover evidence for a divorce suit.
At first the surveillance job seems routine, but Vandy soon realizes there’s trouble beneath the bland surface of the case when a racially charged murder with connections to the Hannah family rocks Q-Town. Fingers point. Clients appear. Opposition to the inquiry hardens. And Vandy’s sight lines begin to blur as her determination to uncover the truth deepens. She’s a minor league PI with few friends and no resources. Logic pegs her chances of solving the case between slim and hell no. But logic isn’t her strong suit. Vandy won’t back off.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this promising series launch, Pitts (the Ross Agency Mysteries) introduces PI Vandy Myrick, the self-described "toughest bitch" in Queenstown, N.J. After her daughter died of an overdose at a college party, Vandy quit the Philadelphia police department and returned home to Queenstown. Her detective agency is a downgrade from her police work—most of her cases involve collecting evidence against philandering spouses—but it pays well and keeps her busy. Things go south, however, after she's hired by Leo Hannah, the nephew of Queenstown's mayor, to gather information about his wife, Ivy. When Vandy arrives at the Hannahs' home to deliver her report, she finds a bloody crime scene. Leo says he found a man—taxi driver Hector Ramírez—attacking Ivy with a hammer and shot him, but not before Ivy was killed. Vandy isn't convinced the answer is so straightforward and sets out to investigate. In the process, she reconnects with her high school flame, who's now Queenstown's chief of police, and learns discomfiting truths about the racial tensions rippling through her hometown. With an indelible lead and a richly rendered setting, Pitts sets this series up for success. Readers will clamor for the next installment.
