ARC Review: A Pair of Aces by Marie Benedict & Victoria Christopher Murray

A Pair of Aces
Author: Marie Benedict & Victoria Christopher Murray
Publication: Berkley (June 2, 2026)

Description: A gripping novel about two trailblazing women on opposite sides of the law—a prosecutor and a madam—who team up to bring down notorious Mob boss Lucky Luciano in 1930s New York, from the New York Times bestselling authors of the million-copy bestseller The Personal Librarian.

Eunice Carter, assistant district attorney for the City of New York and Manhattan’s first Black female prosecutor, has her sights set on the one and only Lucky Luciano, head of New York City’s five largest organized crime families. Other prosectors have tried to bring down Lucky, but they’ve all focused on the crime syndicate’s traditional businesses—bootlegging, gambling, loan sharking, and drug dealing—or tax evasion. No one has thought to approach the mob through its role in prostitution. Until Eunice. But she can’t get Luciano alone.

Polly Adler has worked long and hard to build up her high-class brothel business. Her client list is filled with well-known names, both the famous and the infamous, who all know her booze is top-notch, her music first-rate, her food exquisite, and her girls the best. But Lucky has gone too far, putting her girls in danger, and Polly finally sees the chance to end his reign once and for all.

Together, Eunice and Polly fashion a case utilizing a network of women. Bridging the enormous divide between them and risking their own lives, they assemble evidence bit by bit, under the nose of the man they’re trying to convict. It is this very alliance—of two women from vastly different worlds—that launches the most sensational trial New York City has ever seen.

My Thoughts: Two very different women need to work together to take "Lucky" Luciano off New York's streets in 1935-1936.

Polly Adler is one of New York's most notorious madams. Arriving in New York from Russia as a twelve-year-old who spoke no English, Polly had to make her own way and send money home so that the rest of her family could join her in the United States. She began by working in a garment factory but was raped by her supervisor who fired her when she got pregnant. The people who she roomed with threw her out and left her struggling on the street for survival. She worked her way up from a street prostitute to the owner of a notorious house frequented by the literary set and local gangsters too. She prided herself in her care of her girls. 

Something new is coming to New York. Organized crime has taken an interest in prostitution and wants to bring all the houses and girls under their control. 

Meanwhile, Eunice Carter is an Assistant District Attorney working on the team with District Attorney Thomas Dewey to tackle organized crime. Eunice is a smart lawyer working under the burden of being both colored and female. While of high status in her neighborhood of Harlem, she finds herself relegated to the fringes of the investigation. She has been concentrating on prostitution which Dewey isn't very interested in until some other lines falter and Eunice makes contact with Polly who alerts her to the scheme of organizing prostitution under criminal control. 

The two work together secretly to gather the information needed to bring down crime boss "Lucky" Luciano. At first Polly wants Luciano gone so that she can resume her usual business without interference but over the course of time her goals change. Eunice wants to bring down Luciano but almost loses her marriage over her dedication to the case. 

This was an interesting story about two very different women. Each is fighting for her place in the world. They have more in common than either would have thought when they first met. This novel of biographical fiction introduced two amazing, but very human, woman. 

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.

ARC Review: Savvy Summers and the Sweet Potato Crimes by Sandra Jackson-Opoku

Savvy Summers and the Sweet Potato Crimes
Author: Sandra Jackson-Opoku
Series: Savvy Summers Mysteries (Book 1)
Publication: Minotaur Books (July 29, 2025)

Description: A sparkling debut mystery set on the south side of Chicago, featuring the quick-witted, unforgettable Savvy Summers, proprietor of a soul food café.

When Savvy Summers first opened Essie's soul food café, she never expected her customer-favorite sweet potato pie to become the center of a murder investigation. But when Grandy Jaspers, the 75-year-old neighborhood womanizer, drops dead at table two, she suddenly has more to worry about than just maintaining Essie's reputation for the finest soul food in the Chicagoland area.

Even as the police deem Grandy’s death an accident, Savvy quickly finds herself—and her beloved café—in the middle of an entire city’s worth of bad press. Desperate to clear her name and keep her business afloat, Savvy and her snooping assistant manager, Penny Lopés, take it upon themselves to find who really killed Grandy.

But with a slimy investor harassing her to sell her name and business, customers avoiding her sweet potato pie like the plague, and her police sergeant ex-husband suddenly back in the picture, will Savvy be able to clear the café’s name and solve Grandy’s murder before it all falls apart?

After all, while Savvy always said her sweet potato pie was to die for, she never meant literally.

My Thoughts: This was one busy mystery. Savvy Summers, retired English teacher and assistant principal, has opened a restaurant and catering business using her beloved Aunt Essie's recipes. She has made it the best soul food restaurant in South Chicago. But when a frequent though cheap customer dies at table two, Savvy finds the reputation of her restaurant in jeopardy. 

Even though it is learned that the 75-year-old died of a heart attack brought on by too much Viagra, people are still blaming her sweet potato pie. Savvy believes that he was murdered and begins her own investigation. And when a local and very slimy politician also dies the same way after being hit in the face with one of Savvy's pies at a local fundraiser, Savvy's reputation is threatened again. 

And besides these threats to her business and reputation, Savvy is also dealing with harassment by a local property developer who is pressuring her to sell her business and building to his real estate group. 

But Savvy, with her Aunt Essie's maxims in her brain, isn't going to be pushed around. With the help of her assistant manager and her police sergeant ex-husband, Savvy is on the case. 

This story was filled with the attitudes and language of Black South Chicago. I enjoyed the setting and the descriptions of the soul food. 

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.

ARC Review: Death of an Ex by Delia Pitts

Death of an Ex
Author: Delia Pitts
Series: Vandy Myrick Mysteries (Book 2)
Publication: Minotaur Books (July 15, 2025)

Description: Delia Pitts expertly writes about family, race, class, and grief in her mysteries. Vandy Myrick captured readers' and critics' hearts in Trouble in Queenstown. She returns in Death of an Ex, where Vandy tries to piece together what brought her ex-husband's life to an end.

Queenstown, New Jersey, feels big when you need help and tiny when you want privacy. For Vandy Myrick, that’s both a blessing and a curse. Now that Vandy’s back in “Q-Town,” her services as her hometown’s only Black woman private investigator have earned her more celebrity―or notoriety―than she figured.

Keeping busy with work helps Vandy deal with the grief of losing her daughter, stitching the seams, cementing the gaps. The memories will always remain, and they come crashing back to the surface when her ex-husband, Phil Bolden, walks back into her life. Promising everything, returning home, restoring family. Until she answers her door to the news that Phil has been murdered. And Vandy decides Phil is now her client.

It’s hard to separate the Phil that Vandy knew from the one Queenstown did. She sees him―and their daughter―in Phil’s son, who attends a prestigious local high school. She sees the layers of a complicated marriage with his wife. She sees all of Phil’s various roles: parent, husband, businessman, philanthropist. But which role got him killed?

My Thoughts: This is the second Vandy Myrick mystery. Vandy is Queenstown, New Jersey's only Black private investigator. She is also a Q-town native who is back trying to rebuild her life after the death of her teenage daughter. When she runs into her ex, she is still smitten. 

When her ex, Philip Bolden, is shot to death after their one-night stand, Vandy uses guilt as her lever to look into the murder. Her investigations take her from her mother's church Bethel African Methodist Episcopal and its very eager church secretary to the prestigious Rome School where Philip's son Tariq is a student and wife Melanie is a guidance counselor. 

The more she investigates the more she learns about her ex-husband and the life he was living. She uncovers secrets that indicate he didn't just forget about her and her daughter even though they split up with Vandy was four months pregnant. She also learns that he's involved in a twisty scheme that includes money-laundering. She has a plethora of suspects that she needs to sort through since a number of people might have wanted the charming philanderer dead. 

Vandy is an interesting character who lives on the grey side of life. She manages to combine toughness with vulnerability and is a realistically flawed human being. 

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.

ARC Review: Trouble in Queenstown by Delia Pitts

Trouble in Queenstown
Author: Delia Pitts
Publication: Minotaur Books (July 16, 2024)

Description: With Trouble in Queenstown, Delia Pitts introduces private investigator Vandy Myrick in a powerful mystery that blends grief, class, race, and family with thrilling results.

Evander “Vandy” Myrick became a cop to fulfill her father’s expectations. After her world cratered, she became a private eye to satisfy her own. Now she's back in Queenstown, New Jersey, her childhood home, in search of solace and recovery. It's a small community of nine thousand souls crammed into twelve square miles, fenced by cornfields, warehouses, pharma labs, and tract housing. As a Black woman, privacy is hard to come by in "Q-Town," and worth guarding.

For Vandy, that means working plenty of divorce cases. They’re nasty, lucrative, and fun in an unwholesome way. To keep the cash flowing and expand her local contacts, Vandy agrees to take on a new client, the mayor’s nephew, Leo Hannah. Leo wants Vandy to tail his wife to uncover evidence for a divorce suit.

At first the surveillance job seems routine, but Vandy soon realizes there’s trouble beneath the bland surface of the case when a racially charged murder with connections to the Hannah family rocks Q-Town. Fingers point. Clients appear. Opposition to the inquiry hardens. And Vandy’s sight lines begin to blur as her determination to uncover the truth deepens. She’s a minor league PI with few friends and no resources. Logic pegs her chances of solving the case between slim and hell no. But logic isn’t her strong suit. Vandy won’t back off.

My Thoughts: Vandy Myrick has come back to her hometown of Queenstown to open a business as a private investigator. She is home so that she can spend time with her father who is in a home and suffers from dementia. She is working with two friends, one of whom is a lawyer.

Most of Vandy's cases are simple and straightforward. When an influential local named Leo Hannah hires her to follow his wife, Vandy thinks it will be just another case but will give her entry into another group of potential clients. Vandy follows Ivy Hannah on her rounds for a week and is preparing a report for Leo when she gets a phone call. 

Someone has broken into the Myrick home and Leo shot and killed him. He claims that the home invader assaulted his wife who died on the operating table. Since Leo's aunt is the mayor, the investigation is quickly completed, and it lays all the blame on home invader Hector Ramirez and clears Leo of any culpability. 

But Vandy isn't so sure. Her years as a police officer show her another more likely scenario. And Ivy's father who wants custody of Ivy's 3-year-old son and Hector's teenage sister doesn't believe that her brother could have killed Ivy. 

Vandy begins her own investigation and finds herself the target of an assault herself and finds her father and friends also targeted. Someone doesn't want the truth to come out and is willing to go to all lengths to get Vandy to abandon her investigation. 

This was an engaging story. Vandy is an intriguing character who is dealing with her own grief after the death of her teenage daughter at a frat party. She has given up drinking and refuses to carry a gun, but she hasn't given up her reckless habit of one-night stands which is her substitution for intimacy. 

I enjoyed the story of this black woman who works in a town that was once a visible haven for the KKK. The racism is still pervasive though not quite as visible. 

I recommend this story for its great characters and fast-paced plot. 

Favorite Quote:

At fifteen, I answered a vital question: which side of the law would I be on? Both at once, if I could pull it off.

And I learned a vital lesson: which side would the law be on? Not mine, I knew for certain.

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.

ARC Review: Coconut Drop Dead by Olivia Matthews

Coconut Drop Dead
Author: Olivia Matthews
Series: Spice Isle Bakery Mysteries (Book 3)
Publication: Minotaur Books (December 26, 2023)

Description: The case in Olivia Matthews's Coconut Drop Dead is going to be a tough nut to crack.

Brooklyn’s annual Caribbean American Heritage Festival is finally here, and Spice Isle Bakery is thrilled to be one of the event’s food vendors. After all, the Murrays have been attending the festival for years. Co-owner Lyndsay Murray hopes their West Indian pastries and finger foods draw people back to the bakery in Little Caribbean. She’s looking forward to having fun, connecting with customers, and celebrating with her family.

The day's festivities are cut short when Camille, lead singer of an up-and-coming reggae band, dies. The police think it may be a tragic accident. But Lyndsay’s cousin Manny was close to Camille, and he believes someone cut her life short. Now Manny needs Lyndsay’s help to make sure a killer faces the music.

My Thoughts: Lyndsay Murray and her family are busy with the Caribbean American Heritage Festival when Camille Abbey falls to her death down a flight of stairs. Camille is the lead singer of DratonFlyZ an up-and-coming reggae band. Lyndsay's cousin Manny was close to Camille and wanted to be closer. Lyndsay decides to look into the death to see if it was murder.

When Camille's death is judged to be murder, and the police seem to be taking their own sweet time to investigate, Lyndsay and her family decide to do their own investigations to answer their questions and help Manny grieve.

There are a number of suspects from the manager who was often at odds with Camille and the ex-boyfriend who was her fellow songwriter. Maybe the backup singer who was displaced for Camille had decided to get rid of the competition. 

Besides investigating, Lyndsay is also busy with the upsurge in business the festival brought her bakery and the new catering opportunities the festival also brought. She's also wondering about her relationship with detective Bryce Jackson who seems to want to date her. But she still hasn't forgiven him for thinking that she was a murderer and worse that her mother was. 

Lyndsay has changed a lot since she and her family opened the bakery. She has grown more self-confident and assertive. Successes at solving two mysteries have been good for her self-esteem, While this case has its complications, Lyndsay and her family are up to the task of solving the murder.

I enjoyed the vivid and colorful descriptions of the bakery with all of its wonderful spices. There were so many delicious sounding dishes served there. A couple of recipes are included at the end of this story. 

Favorite Quote:

"You're Lyndsay Murray the Grenadian Nancy Drew. I've read about you in the Beacon."

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.

Book Review: Miss Aldridge Regrets by Louise Hare

Miss Aldridge Regrets
Author: Louise Hare
Series: A Canary Club Mystery (Book 1)
Publication: Berkley (July 5, 2022)

Description: The glittering RMS Queen Mary. A nightclub singer on the run. An aristocratic family with secrets worth killing for.

London, 1936. Lena Aldridge wonders if life has passed her by. The dazzling theatre career she hoped for hasn’t worked out. Instead, she’s stuck singing in a sticky-floored basement club in Soho, and her married lover has just left her. But Lena has always had a complicated life, one shrouded in mystery as a mixed-race girl passing for white in a city unforgiving of her true racial heritage.

She’s feeling utterly hopeless until a stranger offers her the chance of a lifetime: a starring role on Broadway and a first-class ticket on the Queen Mary bound for New York. After a murder at the club, the timing couldn’t be better, and Lena jumps at the chance to escape England. But death follows her onboard when an obscenely wealthy family draws her into their fold just as one among them is killed in a chillingly familiar way. As Lena navigates the Abernathy’s increasingly bizarre family dynamic, she realizes that her greatest performance won't be for an audience, but for her life.

With seductive glamor, simmering family drama, and dizzying twists, Louise Hare makes her beguiling US debut.

My Thoughts: This historical mystery is set in 1936 and stars Lena Aldridge who is Black but passing for White. She is a singer in a seedy club when she is offered the chance to go to New York City to star in a Broadway musical. This couldn't come at a more perfect time. Her married lover has just left her. She's been kicked out of her room at her rooming house and has been fired from her job at the club. 

She has also just witnessed the death of her boss who also happens to be her best friend's husband. Tommy Scarsdale wasn't much of a husband flaunting his younger and younger lovers in front of his wife's face. Even worse, he has just asked her friend Maggie for a divorce and plans to leave her destitute. When he dies from cyanide poisoning, Lena suspects Maggie but decides to cover up any possibility of her involvement. 

Once onboard the ship, she finds herself seated at the table of the powerful Abernathy family. The head of the family is Francis Parker who is a very wealthy man who has suffered a stroke and is dying. However, he still has a tight grip on his family which includes his son-in-law Jack, daughter Eliza, and grandchildren Frankie and Carrie. Also in the entourage is his personal physician Dr. Wilding and Parker's secretary Daisy.

Lena is wondering why Charlie Bacon, who is supposed to be her guide to New York, wants to have her get to know these people. It soon becomes clear that he is eager for her to ingratiate herself with them in the hopes of having them support the upcoming Broadway show. 

Then Francis Parker is also poised with cyanide and Lena is sure that she will be blamed. Two deaths having the same cause is just too coincidental. She's right that she'll be blamed because that's what a hidden enemy has planned. But why Lena has been chosen to be the scapegoat only slowly becomes clear. 

Luckily, Lena has an alibi for the third murder in the person of bandleader Will Goodman. It is Will who brings the theme of prejudice into the story. He's a Black man who is knowledgeable about the difficulties Lena will face in New York if anyone learns that she's passing. 

This was a complicated story with a variety of flashbacks and viewpoints. I found Lena to be morally ambiguous and I'm not sure I agree with her choices even while knowing there was no other real choice about what she did. 

The time period was well drawn and the characters interesting and complex people. I enjoyed the story. 

Favorite Quote:

Alfie had told me that there were two sets of rules in America -- one for them and one for us. In England, there simply weren't enough colored people for most people to have thought about it that hard. 

I bought this one. You can buy your copy here.

Friday Memes: Miss Aldridge Regrets by Louise Hare

 Happy Friday everybody!

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. The Friday 56 is hosted at Freda's Voice. Check out the links above for the rules and for the posts of the participants each week. Don’t dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

Beginning:

The doorman barely glanced at me as I slipped past him and down the stairs into the basement club, the stale air thick with cigarette smoke. No one here knew who I was; no one cared.

Friday 56:

The point is that, whether she knows it or not, Lena Aldridge has a very good motive for murder, and it would be a shame to waste it. When the truth comes out, no one will believe she's innocent.

This week I am spotlighting Miss Aldridge Regrets by Louise Hare. This historical mystery is the first in a series. I felt I should read it before I read the sequel which was on my TBR mountain. (The review was for my review book was posted on August 23.) 

Here's the description from Amazon:

The glittering RMS Queen Mary. A nightclub singer on the run. An aristocratic family with secrets worth killing for.

London, 1936. Lena Aldridge wonders if life has passed her by. The dazzling theatre career she hoped for hasn’t worked out. Instead, she’s stuck singing in a sticky-floored basement club in Soho, and her married lover has just left her. But Lena has always had a complicated life, one shrouded in mystery as a mixed-race girl passing for white in a city unforgiving of her true racial heritage.

She’s feeling utterly hopeless until a stranger offers her the chance of a lifetime: a starring role on Broadway and a first-class ticket on the Queen Mary bound for New York. After a murder at the club, the timing couldn’t be better, and Lena jumps at the chance to escape England. But death follows her onboard when an obscenely wealthy family draws her into their fold just as one among them is killed in a chillingly familiar way. As Lena navigates the Abernathy’s increasingly bizarre family dynamic, she realizes that her greatest performance won't be for an audience, but for her life.

With seductive glamor, simmering family drama, and dizzying twists, Louise Hare makes her beguiling US debut.

ARC Review: Harlem After Midnight by Louise Hare

Harlem After Midnight
Author: Louise Hare
Series: A Canary Club Mystery (Book 2)
Publication: Berkley (August 29, 2023)

Description: A body falls from a town house window in Harlem, and it looks just like the newest singer at the Apollo...in this evocative, twisting new novel from the author of Miss Aldridge Regrets.

Harlem, 1936: Lena Aldridge grew up in a cramped corner of London, hearing stories of the bright lights of Broadway. She always imagined that when she finally went to New York City, she’d be there with her father. But now he’s dead, and she’s newly arrived and alone, chasing a dream that has quickly dried up. When Will Goodman—the handsome musician she met on the crossing from England—offers for her to stay with his friends in Harlem, she agrees. She has nowhere else to go, and this will give her a chance to get to know Will better and see if she can find any trace of the family she might have remaining.

Will’s friends welcome her with open arms, but just as Lena discovers the stories her father once told her were missing giant pieces of information, she also starts to realize the man she’s falling too fast and too hard for has secrets of his own. And they might just place a target on her back. Especially when she is drawn to the brightest stage in town.

My Thoughts: The sequel to MISS ALDRIDGE REGRETS takes place in New York City in 1936. Lena has survived the problems of the first book but is in New York with no job and no friends except Will Goodman whom she met on the Atlantic crossing.

Lena is staying with Will's friends Claudette and Louis. She's a library assistant and he's a doctor. Lena is also learning more about Will. She meets his stepsister Bel and his niece Joey and lots of people in Harlem who remember him fondly. 

Lena is also looking for information about her father who recently died of tuberculosis. She met the woman who was her mother in the first adventure and has quite a few questions about her father's life that he never told her about. 

The book actually begins with a woman falling out of the window of Claud and Louis's apartment holding Lena's passport leading the reader to believe that it was Lena. Then the story slips backward to when Lena first arrives in New York. There are also flashbacks that let the reader take a peek into Lena's father Alfie's life in New York City before she was born. We learn about him before Lena does. 

This was an interesting historical story with a bit of mystery. Like in the first book, the mystery plot isn't the most important part of the story and isn't particularly strong. What is important is Lena's search for family and for the past her father never told her about. It is about the difficulties of being Black in New York City in 1936 even if your skin is light enough to pass. It's about the start of a romance that doesn't seem to have a future.

Fans of historical fiction will enjoy getting to know Lena and her world. 

Favorite Quote:

People made mistakes, but I wasn't entirely sure that we weren't meant to. Our lives were formed from those errors of judgment. Even the bad times sometimes begat the good. 

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.