Review by Booklist Review
Winslow returns to the small, segregated North Carolina town of his 1940s-set debut, In West Mills (2019). Returning to West Mills in the 1970s after 40 years away, Jo finds that her fiancé, Lymp, is the prime suspect in the murder of his three half-siblings, Marva, Lazarus, and Marian, the first Black doctor in West Mills. Discovering several town secrets as she investigates, Jo finds other potential suspects, even as the sheriff declares the murder a drug deal gone wrong. Eunice had a very public dispute with Marian after taking her son, La'Roy, to the doctor to "have the gay removed." Savannah, whose sons were involved in Marian's plan for La'Roy, had a pill addiction, aided by her friend Marva. Or maybe it was Savannah's father, wrapped up in a bitter fight with the siblings over real estate. Winslow offers several points of view in this character-driven mystery, once again pulling readers in with conversational, highly readable writing while deftly weaving in themes of race, sexuality, and small-town dynamics. Another winner.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Winslow (In West Mills) chronicles the aftermath of a triple homicide that rocks a segregated Southern community in his dynamic latest. Residents of mid-1970s West Mills, N.C., become embroiled in the shooting of Black siblings Marian, Marva, and Laz Harmon, after local authorities turn a blind eye. Spearheading the citizen-led investigation is Jo Wright, who moved back to her birthplace after decades in Harlem to retire and marry her childhood sweetheart, Olympus "Lymp" Seymour, the half-brother of the murder victims. Amid speculation of drug deals gone bad, medical malfeasance (Marian was a pediatrician), and other motives, Jo digs into the case, bringing up painful secrets about the town's history. A bevy of characters offer their personal histories and perspectives on the town's racial woes, among them Savannah, Marian's best friend who chose to be with a Black man against her white family's wishes; and Eunice, who sent her queer teenage son La'Roy to Marian in the misguided hope of having "the gay removed." There are a trove of surprises along the way to the well-earned resolution, and Winslow entrances readers with strong characters, impeccable prose, and brisk pacing. As a character-driven mystery, it delivers the goods. (Jan.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
In the mid-1970s, after decades in New York, Josephine Wright returns to her sleepy North Carolina hometown of West Mills to be with her beau, Olympus "Lymp" Seymore, whom she knew growing up. Not long after Jo's arrival, Marion Harmon, a prominent Black doctor, is found murdered along with Lymp's half-brother and -sister. Estranged from his siblings and having been heard threatening to kill them, Lymp is immediately suspected. Jo instinctively feels it wasn't him and sets out to do the investigative work the town's police department isn't bothering to do. Gathering clues, she learns many of the town's long-hidden secrets along the way, with her most promising lead centering on Eunice Loving, who brought her son La'Roy to Marion to have his homosexual tendencies "fixed." Marion's "treatment" turned out to be an attempted beating by the biracial sons of Savannah Russet, traumatizing La'Roy and leading to a threatening argument between Eunice and Marion. Despite Eunice having motive, the truth, when it finally comes out, will surprise everyone. VERDICT It's built around a mystery, but this novel is more a deep literary exploration of the complex dynamics of race, class, and homophobia in the 1970s American South; it proves a worthy successor to Winslow's acclaimed In West Mills.--Lawrence Rungren
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A triple murder shocks a small North Carolina town into confronting its deepest fears and darker secrets lingering in the wake of the civil rights era. Winslow follows up his widely praised debut, In West Mills (2019), by returning to the eponymous Southern locale of that multilayered romance with a murder mystery set in the mid-1970s. The story begins shortly after the bullet-riddled bodies of Dr. Marian Harmon, her sister, Marva, and brother, Lazarus, are discovered at the foot of the staircase of their home in the predominantly Black western section of West Mills. As readers of the earlier novel will recall, the hamlet is divided along racial lines by a small canal, and even after Jim Crow's demise, the scars of racial segregation remain deep and raw. The town's sheriff's department regards their first homicide in decades as little more than a drug-related break-in, even after they interrogate, then release, the siblings' half brother, Olympus "Lymp" Seymore, who was first suspected because of an argument he'd had with the three Harmons. Arrested or not, Lymp nonetheless walks around town with a taint of suspicion. And this deeply distresses Josephine Wright, a middle-aged native daughter of West Mills who has returned home after a 48-year stint in New York City to make a new life for herself with her childhood friend Lymp. Jo decides to remove any doubts about Lymp's innocence by wandering around town asking who else might have a motive for murder. Is it Eunice Loving, who had taken her son La'Roy to Dr. Harmon to "have the gay removed" but was later horrified by the doctor's violent methods? Is it Ted Temple, the town's most prominent White real estate mogul, who was landlord for the Harmons' home and, until a bitter dispute separated them, Marian's secret lover? Or could it have been Ted's daughter, Savannah, who more than a decade before had been ostracized by her father and exiled from the predominantly White part of town because she'd fallen in love with a Black man? Or could it have been Lymp after all? Jo isn't sure of anything, but she proves a relentless and incisive sleuth, not just in pursuit of what happened, but in untangling the complex social dynamics within the seemingly bucolic rural Carolina hamlet. Though not as intricately woven as Winslow's first novel, this tale comes across as considerably more than a regional whodunit because of its author's humane and sensitive perceptions toward his characters, even those who may not deserve such equanimity. A sequel that whets your appetite for another taste of life in West Mills. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
