BLACK CAMELOT'S DAYS OF WAR

In this third installment of Myers’ Black Camelot series, white supremacist organizations seeking murderous revenge incite a race war.

A trio of successful, affluent businesspeople make up a group known as Black Camelot in New York City. Their mere existence makes them targets for hate groups, with the powerful Before Emancipation organization going to great lengths to kill them. Luckily, the Society of Protectors, a private army, so efficiently safeguards Black Camelot that the members don’t even realize they’re in danger. But lately, things have changed; BE’s fury over many of its men falling to the Protectors leads the organization to go after Black Camelot and their allies with a vengeance. And this time, BE’s skilled assassins manage to kill more than one of their targets. Now, it seems, any friends of Black Camelot, or anyone who’s ever helped them, are at grave risk. With help from the nefarious secret society Pre-1860, BE funds a race war, one that the Protectors must put a stop to before more lives are lost. The author brings back many characters from preceding installments, including widow Dawn Davis Stuart and her beloved father-in-law, Yancey Stuart, both of whom are in the assassins’ sights. The bulk of the text is a string of phone calls in which people update others on deaths or murder attempts, an approach that works best for the Protectors’ enigmatic leader, “the Voice” (“We have come up with a name for this entire offensive; we call it Project Maim”). The very size of the cast generates suspense, since the killers could go gunning for any number of people. As in the previous entry, series regulars Donald Alexander, Kwame Mills, and Samantha Rivers (who are Black Camelot) make relatively few appearances, but further planned sequels should give these three ample opportunities to retake the narrative reins.

A rousing, topical thriller that keeps an ongoing saga moving at a brisk pace.