TROUBLE IN QUEENSTOWN

Pitts launches a new series with an apparently routine case for a Black New Jersey private eye that morphs into another case, and then another and another, as she struggles to keep up with its twists and turns.

Leo Hannah, deputy head of research at ArcDev Pharmaceuticals and the unofficial prince of Queenstown, wants Evander Myrick to follow his wife because he’s convinced she’s in danger. Except she isn’t; he really wants Vandy to follow Ivy Mae Hannah because he thinks she’s cheating on him. His worries are soon ended by an episode at his home that leaves Ivy dead along with Hector Ramírez, the intruder who Leo says was beating her to death when Leo shot him. None of this smells right to Vandy, and the fact that Leo’s aunt, Josephine Hannah, has been the mayor of Queenstown forever just makes it smell worse. So she’s fine to take on a new client—Ivy’s father, Professor Samuel Decker—who hires her to prove that Leo killed his daughter, and still another client, Hector’s sister, 16-year-old Ingrid Ramírez, who hires her to clear her brother’s name. Unsurprisingly, there turns out to be trouble aplenty in Queenstown, and it reaches deep into the mayor’s office. The surprise is how closely it’s connected to Vandy’s own family, especially to her father and namesake, a former cop who’s now in a nursing home where you’d think he’d be entitled to a much quieter life than his author has planned for him.

A darkly atmospheric debut whose heroine just might want to reconsider her decision not to carry a gun next time.