May 13, 2024
At the start of Afia's underwhelming third mystery starring Black lesbian detective Louise Lloyd (after Harlem Sunset), it's the spring of 1928 and Louise has decamped from Harlem to Paris, where she spends her days clerking in a parfumerie and her nights drinking and dancing. Things take a turn after up-and-coming artist Iris Wright disappears and her mother approaches Louise with a letter of recommendation from a friend back in Harlem and begs her to come out of retirement. Reluctantly, Louise agrees, plunging into the shadowy world of La Mort de Artistes, a secret society of women artists to which Iris belonged. As Louise infiltrates their ranks, she grows frightened of Iris's ruthless milieu, and leans on her circle of glamorous writers and musicians—and her two love interests—for help solving the case. Afia conjures a suitably intoxicating atmosphere, but her plotting drags, and the final reveal is a letdown. In letters to Louise, her friends praise her as “brave,” “brilliant,” and “formidable,” but little on the page bears out such qualities of her character. This disappoints. Agent: Travis Pennington, Knight Agency.
