Black Orchid Blues

February 21, 2011
In Walker's exuberant third Harlem Renaissance mystery (after 2008's Darkness and the Devil Behind Me), new performing sensation Queenie Lovetree, a six-foot-three drag queen who bills himself as the "Black Orchid," approaches Lanie Price, the Harlem Chronicle's society columnist, at the Cinnamon Club. Queenie wants Lanie to profile him, but a man in a Stetson and trench coat, armed with a tommy gun, interrupts their conversation and forces Queenie to leave the club. Lanie's involvement in the search for Queenie brings her into conflict with her editor, Sam Delaney, and Det. John Blackie—and into contact with such diverse denizens of 1920s Harlem as notorious loan shark Stax Murphy and transvestite Jack-a-Lee Talbot. This dark, sexy novel takes readers from the homes of Striver's Row professionals to the Faggots' Ball, Harlem's "largest drag ball of the year," as Lanie struggles to make sense of the kidnapper's increasingly bizarre behavior.

March 1, 2011

A grisly rendering of Harlem in the 1920s.

Lanie Price, a columnist for the Harlem Chronicle, is interviewing Queenie Lovetree, who as the Black Orchid is the star attraction at the Cinnamon Club, when guns blaze, patrons clamber under tables, bouncers are taken out and Queenie is hustled away to a waiting car by a thug before the cops can arrive. Lanie scurries to the Chronicle offices to write up the kidnapping, but Sam, her lover and managing editor, decides she's too involved and passes off the scoop to another reporter. A few days later, a misaddressed package meant for her neighbors, the Bernards, lands on her doorstep. When opened, it contains a finger wearing Queenie's signature paste diamond ring. Lanie brings it to the Bernards and is soon knee-deep in such melodramatic shenanigans as identity switches, family cover-ups, glamorous theatrical turns at gay nightclubs and insights into why and how Queenie, née Billy, opted to marry, become a drag queen and engineer his (or her) own kidnapping. Lanie's sleuthing leads at length to her own abduction by a perp who confesses every tawdry flourish in pulp-magazine detail, then resolves his identity crisis by putting an end to himself.

Stylistically akin to the pulps, with lots of gruesome twists and turns and impossibilities and every so often a list of '20s touchstones, including famous names and venues.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

March 15, 2011

Harlem in the 1920s: The Cotton Club; louche parties where Barbara Stanwyck, Tallulah Bankhead, and Langston Hughes rub shoulders; African American professionals know they've arrived when they move up to Strivers' Row; and everything is scored to a hot jazz beat. Lanie Price has her beat, too. Introduced in Walker's Darkness and the Devil Behind Me, she is the persistent, not to say foolhardy, society columnist for the Harlem Chronicle. When a new blues singer, Queenie Lovetree, billed as Black Orchid, bursts onto the Harlem firmament, Lanie is there to do the interview. It's not her fault that Queenie is kidnapped right in the middle of it and that a mysterious package clearly meant for someone else is delivered to Lanie's door. Lanie keeps insisting it's not her fault up until she finds herself alone in a house with a stone-cold killer, wearing his dead wife's dress and discussing beauty tips with him. VERDICT Surrender your critical faculties at the door, put a Bessie Smith platter on the Victrola, and go with the flow on this mystery/romance/history mix. You just might like it.--Bob Lunn, Kansas City, MO

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2011
In her third novel, Walker sticks with the Harlem Renaissance setting she used in Harlem Redux (2008) but introduces a new lead character in what is likely the beginning of a series. When Lanie Price, society columnist for the Harlem Chronicle, decides to check out a sultry blues singer, Queenie Lovetree, who is drawing raves at the declass' Cinnamon Club, she walks into a maelstrom. Queenie is kidnapped by a machine-gun-toting assailant who shoots up the club, killing the bouncer and numerous patrons. Lanie is on the case and soon discovers that Queenie has a closetful of secrets, some of which lead to Lanies neighbors on Harlems upscale Strivers Row. Walker stumbles a bit in attempting to keep the careening narrative on track, but the tale is strengthened by plenty of period detail and a fine feel for both the gay underworld of Harlem in the 1920s and the sociopsychological dynamics of her characters. Best of all, Lanie has the makings of a strong series heroine. Walter Mosley fans, in particular, should look for more from this promising crime writer.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)