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.