Dirty Laundry

Charlotte Justice #3

by Paula L. Woods

In her award-winning Charlotte Justice novels, Paula L. Woods has created a rare blend of mystery, suspense, and an unflinching social critique of urban, multiethnic America. Featuring an African American homicide detective in the LAPD’s elite Robbery-Homicide Division, this new Charlotte Justice novel is a sizzling story of murder, politics, families, and betrayal in the uneasy melting pot of Los Angeles, where everyone has their own. . . .

DIRTY LAUNDRY

For Charlotte and her team, the case begins when a woman’s body is found in L.A.’s Koreatown district, where a series of robberies and murders has already put besieged merchants on edge. Now the spectacle of a bright, successful young Korean woman found bludgeoned and bound in an alley is stirring fears, passions, and city politics. In the hours after Vicki Park’s murder, Charlotte Justice must contend with a complex crime scene and a beleaguered community’s hostility toward the police.

Interestingly enough, Vicki (like Charlotte) lived and worked in two different her close-knit Korean community and the wider political world where she served as a special aide to handsome, media-savvy Mike Santos, whose is vying to become L.A.’s first Latino mayor. With twenty-four candidates running to replace a long-standing African American incumbent, the mayor’s race is shaping up as a wild brawl, full of dirty tricks and innuendo. Is Vicki’s murder connected to the campaign or is the answer to be found in the ethnic enclave that nurtured Vicki–and that may now be hiding her killer?

While Charlotte searches for answers, she must also navigate the perils of life in the LAPD, which complicates her personal life, namely her budding relationship with Aubrey Scott, an emergency-room physician. Justifying her relentless hunt for Vicki’s killer as part of her mission as a homicide detective, Charlotte must face the possibility that her motivation may also be to ease the pain she feels over the violent death of her husband and young daughter years before–a possibility that is challenged in unexpected ways.

A powerful story about families and the secrets they keep, Dirty Laundry is a fast-paced, deeply human thriller that builds to a powerful climax. Featuring one of the great female characters in detective fiction today, this book is a fascinating portrait of Los Angeles from the streets of Koreatown to the power corridors of City Hall. Dirty Laundry is Paula Woods’s richest, most rewarding novel to date.


From the Hardcover edition.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction

288 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Paula is a member of Mystery Writers of America, the International Association of Crime Writers, and Sisters in Crime. She has also served as an Edgar judge, on the Author Committee of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books and speaker at the festival.

A native of Los Angeles, Paula's lifelong love of books has resulted in the growth of her personal library to over 1,000 volumes.

Series:
* Charlotte Justice Mystery

Reviews

[Cassondra · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am rating this book a 3 star because it was slow to start but finished strong. It took me a while to get into it and I am usually more intrigued by books that grab my attention from the first chapter.

[Di · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't even finish it. Maybe it was me. I just wasn't into it.

[Liam]

I'm not going to rate this book right now, and I may not ever rate or write an actual review of it. It was not a bad book, Ms. Woods is a perfectly competent author, and this book is as good as, or better than, any of the other recent (meaning published since 1990) mystery/detective or police procedural novels I've read. The reason I am deferring my review until a later date is because the author did something egregiously offensive in this book; something, moreover, for which she spent a great deal of the book having her protagonist call other characters out. I am both shocked and appalled that this author (with whom I was previously unfamiliar) would do such a thing, and I need to put some thought into how, or even if, I want to address that issue. I may finish or at least write more of this review at some point, but most likely not soon...

[Coffee&Books]

Finished last night. Quite meh.

[Eileen Pace · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointed. Touted as an award-winning author, Woods makes me sit through chapter after chapter of boring dialogue. Very little intrigue, pedestrian and predictable. I was just sad about the time I spent trying to "get into" this book. I don't see the Los Angeles history someone else described as an impetus to research the city's history. There isn't that much history. Sorry, but as someone else here said, "Very meh."

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read I am going to continue the series

[Dewayne Stark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Second read of Woods. Her history of Los Angeles as retold through her father makes be do some searching. The various mayor races, Bunker Hill, Bradely's daughter's DUI is all part of the Los Angeles I have seen. Channel six gets mentioned early in the story but I am not sure if that is in reference to the Spanish Channel. Also while approaching the Harbor Freeway going to KTown on Western I was not sure how you could do that since the 110 doesn't go to Western and the Harbor Freeway starts at the 10 at the north end. Many points for repeated cops references to barrel in the mouth, ankle shooter, local cop bars and single malt scotch.

[Margaret · Rating 2 out of 5]

Written in 2003 & set in 1993, for no clear reason other than wanting it to be in the racially-charged era post-Rodney King riots in LA. Anachronistically everyone has cell phones which is really annoying. I couldn't care less about any of the characters so I never got involved in the story & have no interest in the rest of the series.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think the characters in this series might grow on me, heroine is a black detective in LAPD.