By: Delia Pitts
Series: Queenstown Mystery #1
Narrator: Bahni Turpin
ISBN: 9781250350596
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Minotaur Books.
Publication Date: 07/16/2024
Format: audiobook
My Rating: 5 Stars (ALC/ARC)
With Trouble in Queenstown, Delia Pitts introduces private investigator Vandy Myrick in a powerful mystery that blends grief, class, race, and family with thrilling results.
Evander “Vandy” Myrick became a cop to fulfill her father’s expectations. After her world cratered, she became a private eye to satisfy her own. Now she's back in Queenstown, New Jersey, her childhood home, in search of solace and recovery. It's a small community of nine thousand souls crammed into twelve square miles, fenced by cornfields, warehouses, pharma labs, and tract housing. As a Black woman, privacy is hard to come by in "Q-Town," and worth guarding.
For Vandy, that means working plenty of divorce cases. They’re nasty, lucrative, and fun in an unwholesome way. To keep the cash flowing and expand her local contacts, Vandy agrees to take on a new client, the mayor’s nephew, Leo Hannah. Leo wants Vandy to tail his wife to uncover evidence for a divorce suit.
At first the surveillance job seems routine, but Vandy soon realizes there’s trouble beneath the bland surface of the case when a racially charged murder with connections to the Hannah family rocks Q-Town. Fingers point. Clients appear. Opposition to the inquiry hardens. And Vandy’s sight lines begin to blur as her determination to uncover the truth deepens. She’s a minor league PI with few friends and no resources. Logic pegs her chances of solving the case between slim and hell no. But logic isn’t her strong suit. Vandy won’t back off.
A Macmillan Audio production from Minotaur Books.
My Review
Delia Pitts introduces her razor-sharp new mystery series starring the lively, witty, intelligent, challenging, and sassy PI Vandy Myrick with TROUBLE IN QUEENSTOWN!
The novel explores grief, class, race, and family within a murder mystery—from small-town suspense, lies, dirty politics, family secrets, and corruption infused with humor and a kick-ass black female PI.
About...
Set in fictional Queenstown, New Jersey, Vandy Myrick, a former Philadelphia cop, has returned to her hometown to be near her father, Evander, a former cop as well. He is in a nursing home (Glendale Memory Care Center) suffering from dementia. (He has secrets.) She has always been a daddy's girl and influenced by him. She plays chess and bridge with him and takes him snacks when she is coherent enough on good days to know who she is.
Growing up in Q-Town was challenging, where she daily pinballed between boredom and exhilaration, with racism and indifference at every turn. After high school, she escaped to Temple University in Philly, and seven months earlier, she returned in pain.
Vandy, divorced, suffered a significant loss when her only daughter (19) died of an overdose at a college party. She has opened a detective agency with the help of her friend, above the pharmacy in this small town where everyone knows everyone's business.
It starts out as a simple case of a man hiring her to follow his wife; however, Myrick has yet to learn how multi-layered, complex, and dangerous this case will become and how it will be connected to her family and its dark history.
Leo Hannah, the nephew of Queenstown's mayor (Josephine Hannah) and deputy head of research at ArcDev Pharmaceuticals, starts out saying he wants to hire her to protect his wife. He is entitled, angry, powerful, manipulative, and resentful. He is truthful?
However, when Vandy wants to speak to the wife, Leo quickly says this is confidential and thinks she is having an affair.
The wife's name is Ivy Mae Hannah. She is 37 and beautiful. The couple has been married for 14 years. They have a three-year-old son, Tomas, whom they adopted from an orphanage in El Salvador two years earlier. Ivy works in the church, is a caring woman, and oversees all the volunteers. However, she does have secrets.
Vandy takes the case and follows the woman daily, but she sees nothing wrong as she goes about her weekly activities. Then Leo calls, and when she arrives at the home to deliver her report, she finds a brutal crime scene. Ivy is dead, and Hector Ramírez is arrested. A break-in gone wrong? Or a setup? Will she believe Leo, and what is he hiding?
When Hector is arrested as the prime suspect in the murder, Vandy is not so sure Leo is innocent. She winds up investigating and is later hired by Ivy's father, Professor Samuel Decker from Florida, the loving grandfather. Things become dangerous, and Vandy decides she will work for Ivy to make sure she gets justice.
However, there is corruption and coverups, and she does not know how deep the politics go up the ladder and is not sure whom to trust. Someone wants her to go away and stop investigating. Then, her father is kidnapped, leading to an explosive, high-adrenaline, nail-biting conclusion at the water tower.
My thoughts...
I loved TROUBLE IN QUEENSTOWN! Gritty and edgy, I enjoyed PI Vandy Myrick's character. She is flawed, sarcastic, resilient, fearless, tough, intuitive, smart, and funny and reminds me of some of Author Terry McMillan's (love) strong female characters.
She is likable, relatable, and one you will root for. When her family and friends were targeted, she was a fearless mother bear! She takes no crap from anyone. I also like her friends, Elissa (boss), a tough lawyer who hired her to work as the PI in the office, and her other friend, Mavis, the bar owner who looks out for her.
Her relationship with her father reminds me of the Detective Rebecca Ellis series (Robin Mahle) and her grief like Detective Jess Lambert (Christina McDonald).
The investigation is complex and suspenseful—and a web of deceit. I enjoyed the action and twists as you are not sure whom to trust and how all the puzzle pieces fit together. Your jaw will be dropping when the past collides with the present and how this case hits close to home for Vandy. From dirty politics, corruption, class, rank, power, prejudice, racial issues, and more.
I also enjoyed her relationship with Ivy's dad, as he respected her. Vandy is also having a little fun with Bobby (from high school), now a cop in the town, but nothing serious, and I adored the supporting characters in the small town. Get this gem on your TBR list this summer.
The author cleverly sets up a fascinating new series, and I look forward to the long haul! I cannot wait for the next one in the series and adventures to see what is in store for PI Vandy Myrick next!
Audiobook...
I had the pleasure of reading the e-book and listening to the audiobook, which was outstanding! I love Bahni Turpin, the narrator, and she delivered a stellar performance, making the characters come alive-a perfect voice for the novel. I highly recommend the audiobook!
Recs...
TROUBLE IN QUEENSTOWN is not just a cozy mystery. PI Vandy Myrick is immersed in a compelling well-written who-and-why-dunit crime thriller with heart. It is for fans of strong female leads, brilliant cop procedurals, and a blending of family dynamics and humor.
The novel is for fans of authors Terry McMillan, Aime Austin (Casey Cort & Nicole Long legal crime series) social justice thrillers, Sounds Like a Plan—a new PI series by Pamela Samuels Young, and Dwayne Alexander Smith (a favorite), as well as smart detective mysteries.
Those who enjoy humorous series like Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series and Elle Cosimano's Finlay Donovan Series will also delight.
This was my first book by the author, and I cannot wait to read her backlist and more of this riveting new series!
Next in the Q-town series...
According to an author interview, the next title will be Death of an Ex, the second in the series featuring Vandy, taking place a year later. This one is personal and a scandal surrounding a boarding school, with the themes of race, class, status, money, and a family, out next year.
Special thanks to Minotaur Books and Macmillan Audio for a digital review copy and listening copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest opinion.
@JudithDCollins | #JDCMustReadBooks
My Rating: 5 Stars
Pub Date: July 16, 2024
Praise
“The story flies. Pitts’s prose strikes a sophisticated balance between elegance and energy, with a description of Queenstown as a blend of “American Revolutionary severity and antebellum frippery” coming only pages after a cracking bar brawl.”
–Minneapolis Star-Tribune
"A [S]tandout series launch . . . With an indelible lead and a richly rendered setting, Pitts sets this series up for success. Readers will be eager for the next installment." –Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A darkly atmospheric debut whose heroine just might want to reconsider her decision not to carry a gun next time."
–Kirkus Reviews
"Vandy is a realistic, tough woman who refuses to quit, and her inner thoughts are fun to read. Although this is a mystery novel, it also deals with grief, race, classism, and family."
–Booklist
“Offers everything that fans of detective fiction are looking for. . . Pitts has written a strong narrative that ricochets from Vandy’s tragic past to her gutsy present, keeping readers totally engaged to the very last page…and eager for more.”
–First Clue
"Awesome."
–CrimeReads
“A compelling mystery, full of sizzle and heart."
―Steph Cha
“Delia Pitts’s writing is explosive, addictive, and downright beautiful, and her PI, Evander ‘Vandy’ Myrick, is perfection: fierce, sexy, self-aware, and as smart as a slap. Get this book now.”
–Jess Lourey
"Vandy Myrick is officially my new favorite PI. A character-driven, furiously entertaining mystery from the first page to the last. A fantastic start to a sizzling new series."
–Jennifer Hillier
“Practically leaps off the page to grab you by the throat. What a masterful writer. What a ride, what a PI, what a book. Welcome to Queenstown, folks. More, please!”
―Tracy Clark
“Starts off with a bang and draws you in more and more with each passing chapter . . . I already can’t wait for Vandy’s next case.”
―Kellye Garrett
“Evander ‘Vandy’ Myrick is the beating heart of this story–a bold, kick-ass private eye. I’m all in―I’d follow Vandy anywhere.”
―Samantha Jayne Allen
About the Author
DELIA PITTS worked as a journalist before earning a Ph.D. in history from the University of Chicago. After careers as a U.S. diplomat and university administrator, she left academia to begin writing fiction. Trouble in Queenstown is the first book in a new mystery series featuring Black private investigator Vandy Myrick. Delia is also the author of the Ross Agency Mysteries, about a Harlem detective firm, and several short stories. She’s a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and Crime Writers of Color.
