Thank you, NetGalley and HarperCollins Publishing, for allowing me to read this eARC. This book was a 3/5 for me. I could not get into it. I felt like there was a lot of information that wasn’t needed in the beginning, which made it boring at times. This is more of a slow-paced suspenseful book, in my opinion; it just wasn’t for me. The last 30% of the book was the most interesting. I have to say the ending was very action packed. Overall, it was a good book, just not my favorite read.

It's morning in America, but 1980s Mississippi is a tough place for a black female PI. Clem Baldwin is hired to investigate the murder of a prison inmate who feel from the jail's roof on live TV, and soon finds herself the target of the Dixie Mafia. Clem is an intriguing character and the story is intricately plotted. This is well worth your time.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this eARC.

Mississippi in the 1980's would have been difficult enough for a female PI to make a living. Being an ex-cop might have helped, but being biracial in the South in the 1980's, it would have been almost impossible to make a living except perhaps in a large city. I write this as a liberal who grew up in the 80s in the Midwest. I was a female PI in Arizona in the 2000s, and the majority of work we got was from men or women wondering if their spouse was cheating.

That all said, I greatly enjoyed this story, and the characters, the female PI boss with her polite Southern male sidekick and dear friend . I hope this is the start of a new continuing series!