Darker Than Any Shadow

December 12, 2011
The appealing Atlanta odd couple of redneck gun shop operator Tai Randolph and Trey Seaver, a cop turned Armani-clad corporate security expert, enter the world of high-stakes poetry slams in Whittle’s exuberant second mystery (after 2011’s The Dangerous Edge of Things). It starts innocuously enough when Tai’s best friend since forever, Rico Worthington, asks Trey to work the door during his club debut. But before you can say “Maya Angelou,” there’s smoke, fire, and one very dead rival poet. Worse, the detectives on the case regard Rico as the prime suspect. As Tai hustles to keep Rico out of jail, Trey—erratic since the devastating auto accident that forced him off the force—becomes both her biggest asset and a potentially explosive liability. A passel of colorful characters, more plot twists than the reticulated python who has a key cameo, and plenty of atmosphere make this one a winner. Author tour.

February 15, 2012
Money under the mattress, a kitchen full of knives and a bathroom littered with a corpse. Is this any way to run a poetry slam? Gearing up for the Performance Poetry Internationals, Atlanta's Spoken Word Poetry team decides to oust Lex, reinstate Vigil and debut Rico as their newest member at a splashy dinner event. Rico, however, is scared Vigil will come after him, gun blazing, over a slight misunderstanding involving a switchblade and a run-in with cops. So he asks his best friend Tai's boyfriend Trey, former cop and SWAT stalwart now rehabbing from a car accident that rearranged his right frontal lobe and rewired him into a human lie detector, to keep an eye open for trouble. Tai, who's been immersed in trouble ever since inheriting her uncle's gun shop (The Dangerous Edge of Things, 2011), tags along to the party, only to overhear a threat about missing money, then getting soaked to her undies by a faulty sprinkler system, and worst of all, discovering Lex dead on the floor of the bathroom. Naturally, Tai, who has the gumption and nosiness of Stephanie Plum, snoops enough to unearth blackmail, suspiciously placed clues, many mentions of a snake and the second dead body she's come across in a week, this one belonging to Debbie, a poetry team gofer. Garritty, Trey's former APD partner, tries to help out, but Tai still winds up facing a perp with a gun and needing to trust Trey's ex-girlfriend. A must-read if you dote on romance with a touch of wry and mystery with enough suspects to fill a football stadium.

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March 1, 2012

Atlanta's performance poetry scene is sizzling, and Tai Randolph's friends are preparing to debut their team in a major competition. But this hipster world goes decidedly cold when one of the team members is knifed to death. Then there is another killing; suddenly a "Dead Poet Killer" panic sets in. Tai's friend Rico (one of the poets) is suspected of the murder and needs her help. Luckily, Tai's boyfriend Trey, a SWAT-trained ex-cop who works private security, is on the scene for the big competition. Trey might be brain-damaged, but his instincts are spot-on as Tai finds herself surrounded by a horde of literary divas who can't quite tell the truth. She ponders the competitors and tries to puzzle out a motive, but time is running out. VERDICT Whittle brings back the intrepid gun dealer Tai (The Dangerous Edge of Things) in a dynamic sophomore outing. With its psychological edge, smoldering romantic tension, and the Atlanta setting, she's got a unique and appealing series underway. [See Prepub Alert, 11/14/11.]

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2012
A poetry slam makes an unlikely blood sport, but when Tai Randolph is around, bodies seem to appear. When her best friend, Rico Worthington, debuts as a member of the Atlanta Spoken Word Poetry team days before international competition is to begin, Tai stumbles on the body of team member Lex Anderson. Within a week, she's also the first to find the body of a poet wannabe with ties to the team. When gunshop owner Tai isn't outfitting Civil War reenactors, she's sleuthing, involving her reluctant boyfriend, corporate security agent Trey Seaver, whose past brain injuries enhance his sensitivity to microemotive expressions and make him able to detect lying. The quest for the Dead Poet Killer becomes more personal when Tai is put at risk and Rico becomes a suspect. In the second in this series, after The Dangerous Edge of Things (2010), feisty Tai shows her emotional side. A brisk and smartly written entry in what is shaping up to be a winning series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)