Inner City Blues

January 4, 1999
In this energetic, tough-talking debut, African American cop Charlotte Justice works the streets during and immediately after the Los Angeles riots following the Rodney King verdict. The action starts when Charlotte rescues a respected black doctor from a certain beating at the hands of her racist colleagues. Troublingly, Dr. Mitchell's excuses for being on the riot-torn streets that night are scarcely plausible. The corpse of Cinque Lewis, a drug dealer, former revolutionary and, by an odd coincidence, killer of Charlotte's beloved husband and daughter, is soon found near the scene of the doctor's arrest. Then Mitchell becomes the victim of a nasty murder. The investigation into his death kicks up allegations of pedophilia; Mitchell, known for charitable work with teens, was hardly the man he seemed. Along the way, Charlotte has to deal with a white fellow officer who throws around terms like "jungle bunny," with a superior officer who pursues her romantically and even with the threat of an Internal Affairs investigation into her actions during the riots. She does, however, manage to reignite a romance with a childhood sweetheart. Woods makes some rookie mistakes: she sometimes strains to maintain a streetwise feel, using terms like "the niggerati" and "incognegro," and her plot, too, can seem forced, as in Charlotte's implausible assignment to the investigation of Lewis's murder. But Woods can also be funny: a forensics officer lifts "prints faster than the Tasmanian Devil on crack." Charlotte's central conflict--between commitments to her work and to her community--isn't entirely fresh, but it adds nuance to her adventures in this promising, if flawed, first offering.