The Policeman's Daughter

October 30, 2017
Boyce’s captivating third novel featuring Atlanta PD officer Sarah “Salt” Alt (after 2017’s Old Bones) is a prequel about how Salt became a detective that introduces a cast of multidimensional characters that bring the gritty neighborhood to life. Salt, still a beat cop, is working one of the toughest beats in the city, an area called the Homes. During a routine traffic stop, she is shot in the head, giving her prolonged eyesight problems. She starts to see double and even has what appear to be visions, but she hides the injury to avoid being taken off the street. When Shannell, a crack addict and sex worker Salt knows, is murdered, Salt can’t let the investigation rest, even though she’s not a detective and the case has immediately gone cold. Salt chases leads that result in conflict between her and the local gang. This taut, authentic depiction of life as a female beat cop will resonate with crime fiction fans. Agent: Nat Sobel, Sobel Weber Associates.

December 15, 2017
Though she's only notched two earlier appearances, Detective Sarah "Salt" Alt, of the Atlanta PD, gets a prequel that will be her ticket from the ranks of uniformed patrol to the homicide squad.Fresh from a gunshot wound that sent her from a routine traffic stop to the hospital, Salt, whose own cop father killed himself on her 10th birthday, is in no mood for trouble. Sadly, The Homes, the housing project that she and "Pepper" Greer patrol, is where trouble lives. Addict/prostitute Shannell McCloud wants Salt to find Darrell Mobley Sr., the father of her son, Lil D, because he's wandering the streets with a knife wound somebody should look at. But the search for Big D is abruptly eclipsed when Shannell herself is shot to death. In a place like The Homes, it makes no more sense to talk about red herrings than about innocent suspects. Everybody's guilty of something; the only question is which of them happened to shoot Shannell. Salt's attention fixes on fellow gangsta Curtis Stone, but it hardly matters, because it's not Salt's case; she's just a beat cop who can't turn away from Lil D; she still feels guilty for having failed to rescue him from Shannell and The Homes 10 years ago. Her all-but-unofficial investigation brings Salt up against a quartet of streetwalkers--Glenda, Rocksand, Black Sally, and JoJo--the members of Lil D's gang--Man-Man, Johnny C, Bootie Green, Half-Dead, Q-Ball--and Sister Connelly, the neighbor who watches The Homes with a patient attentiveness rivaling Salt's own. Although the final revelation links the story neatly to Old Bones (2017), it's neither as plausible nor as logical as the rest of the case.Even so, Boyce presents compelling evidence in support of the heroine's conclusion that "there seemed no way to do right without collateral damage."

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December 1, 2017
Just two books into the Detective Sarah Alt series, Boyce provides a prequel, revealing how the cop, street-named Salt, became a detective. The story goes back to her finding the body of her father, also a cop, who committed suicide on her tenth birthday, but it concentrates on her time in the Atlanta PD. She's worked 10 years alone on her beat in the violent project called the Homes, as the first female and one of only a few whites in that job. Life on the street is risky, even with fellow cop Greer (street-named Pepper) at her back; she's shot by a gun runner, and her home and life are threatened by a drug dealer. When a hooker is found shot to death, Salt is relentless in finding her killer in a case in which she works with homicide detective Bernard Wills, who will become important in her life. Former Atlanta police officer Boyce vividly captures the toll that working such a beat takes as she fleshes out Salt, with her imperfections, humanity, and strong moral sense. A worthy addition to a gritty, compelling series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)