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DO NOT GO GENTLY
by Judith Smith-Levin
Harper, October 1996
285 pages
$5.99
ISBN: 0061011096


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Many people face challenges when they enter a work place where they are different from their co-workers. Starletta Duvall has generally succeeded as a police lieutenant, but still has to face the fact that some of her unenlightened peers hit on her because she is beautiful or put her down because she is black. Fortunately, she has some good people on her team that she can count on and that don't put gender and race as part of the equation when they look at her. Prime among them is Dominic Paresi.

It's a lazy summer day, the kind where you want to put your feet up on your desk at work and just let the world roll by. But the promise of that kind of day never fulfills itself in most police departments. Star and Dominic answer a call where a woman has been blown away at a family barbecue. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason as to why the killer selected this particular victim, a nice, successful black woman who was about to be married.

Unfortunately, a disturbing pattern soon emerges as several other black, professional women are murdered. These women flaunted their success by driving expensive cars and wearing haute couture. Star finds that she can't be objective about these killings. They literally sicken her, and she is consumed with finding the perpetrator. When a prime suspect is identified, she goes under cover in an effort to trap him. Much to her own revulsion, she finds that he turns her on, that she is a victim of his charisma and charm just as the murdered women may have been.

Smith-Levin has done a smashing job in the development of the character of Starletta. She is tough, yet vulnerable, a multi-faceted woman who will ably sustain a long-running series. The plot moved along nicely, and there was quite an element of suspense as the reader waited in expectation for the perpetrator to reap ever more havoc. Unfortunately, the book faltered at the resolution as Smith-Levin tried to pull off a twisty ending that didn't work for me.

In addition to the wonderful character of Starletta, the relationships in the book are convincingly portrayed and even the secondary characters seemed real. The book could have been unremittingly dark, but Smith-Levin injected humor at just the right moments. I highly recommend this book and look forward with great anticipation to the other books in the series.

Reviewed by Maddy Van Hertbruggen, July 2002

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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