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In her third outing, LAPD Detective Charlotte Justice is called back from suspension to a short staffed department to help investigate the murder of Vicki Park, a young Korean woman who had been working as an aide to mayoral candidate Mike Santos. It is less than a year after the Rodney King riots and LA is still struggling with the aftermath of that unfortunate court decision. Hispanics, Asians, African-Americans and whites live together uneasily in this sprawling city. Justice is fighting her personal problems. She is planning on moving in with her lover, ER physician Aubrey Scott, finally giving up the more modest house in which she lived with her husband and young child, murdering in a gang related drive-by shooting in 1978. That was not a good year for Charlotte. Her brother, Perris, now a criminal lawyer, was injured on the job in 1978 also. Now, in 1993, the tensions of the most multiracial city in the US, are still simmering. There have been several killings of merchants in Korea town. And Justice must find the reason for the murder of this young woman, whose traditional family does not like her becoming part of the new world in which they live, just as Charlotte's well-to-do family think she can do better for herself than being a cop. Justice fights racism and sexism in her search for the truth. Her husband had been killed while researching gangs in LA. Why did Perris, Charlotte's brother, rifle through those boxes of old files in Charlotte's house and remove some? What is the relationship between the apparent suicide of an elderly Japanese man and Park's family? Can former news anchor Santos, beat 23 other candidates and unseat the current African American mayor to become the first Latino mayor of Los Angeles? Woods is able to make one remember the LA of 10 years ago, when the central city still showed signs of the destruction and fires of the year before; when the racism and sexism of the LAPD merely mirrored that of the city around it. She also shows us that all families are pretty much alike, despite our superficial differences. All wrapped up in a fine mystery with well drawn characters, and even a touch of "Mom always liked you best" in the relationship between Charlotte and Perris. This is a must read series. Read them in order if you can, INNER CITY BLUES and STORMY WEATHER, precede DIRTY LAUNDRY.
Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, June 2003
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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