A series of attacks on mosques, temples and black churches are occurring across Detriot in 2009.
But the latest attack on a mosque turns deadly when a respected Muslim teacher enters the building to check out a silenced alarm and is killed in an explosion. After a month with no resolution, the Pashia family hires PI Charlie Mack and her team to find their father’s killers. FBI agent James Saleh returns to help the Mack Agency coordinate with the local police and multi-agency task force investigating these hate crimes. They quickly find clues pointing to an amateur group of wannabe haters known as the Turks, including a young tech genius named Robbie. They enlist Robbie's help to infiltrate the group with Mack employee Don going undercover as a bomb-making expert. Now it's a race against time to gain the group's trust and to thwart their plans on a bigger attack.

This was the first book I have read in the Charlie Mack Motown mystery series. Charlie, her team and the Task Force members are competent, engaging and determined to end this threat at almost any cost.

I received a digital ARC from Netgalley and Bywater Books with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book and provided this review.

This book a run-of-the-mill procedural featuring a private investigating firm made up of former federal agents. When a Mosque in Oakland County, Michigan is defaced, the family of a man killed in the bomb blast hires the Mack Agency to supplement the police in their search for the killer(s). Charlie Mack and her team does the legwork necessary to identify one of the perpetrators.

This is the 6th book in the Charlie Mack Motown mystery series and the author does little to introduce new readers to her series. None of the characters were developed in such a way as to give them personalities readers will fall in love with, perhaps the first book was where she did all that work, but she needed to at least help the new reader to her series want to read the 7th book and she failed to do that.

Head’s storyline had great potential, but it, like the characters, was never fully developed leaving the reader wondering when the story was going to take off and soar. There were problems with some of the events, i.e., when the bomb was detonated in an office in the Mosque, it was strong enough to blow the door out and kill a man, but not strong enough to destroy the interior of the office or do much damage to the office.

If you want a non-angsty summer read, this book may be what you’re looking for, but if you’re looking for a well-written, character driven book published by a LesFic publisher (with all that that usually entails), you’d best skip this book.

My thanks to NetGalley and Bywater Books for an eARC.

3 stars

A PI firm works with the FBI to infiltrate white hate groups in this Detroit based mystery. It begins slow but gets more interesting towards the end.

[What I liked:]

•It was really fun to read a book set in Detroit & the metro area! I’ve worked & lived in several of the locations featured in the story, & could easily picture myself in the location descriptions. Additionally, the issues & tensions in the book are very relevant to Detroit. SE Michigan has the largest Arab-American population in the country & a large Muslim community, & also a far-right militia/hate group problem. So this story was set in a very relevant time & place.

•The various figures involved in the conspiracies, the undercover agents, & infiltrations were interesting.

•I appreciate how many women characters there were, including Mack, Judy, Coleman, & Mandy; not to mention, a queer couple.


[What I didn’t like as much:]

•The first 40% of the book was kind of boring, mainly because of slow pacing. Things definitely picked up after that, but I was tempted to DNF at 20%.

•Several characters were important at the beginning of the book, but then sort of disappeared until the end (Ernestine & the Pashias). That felt clumsy.

CW: explosives detonations, racism (& other bigotry), physical violence

[I received an ARC ebook copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Thank you for the book!]