Copyright Date:
2022
Edition Date:
2022
Release Date:
06/17/22
ISBN:
1-432-89831-0
ISBN 13:
978-1-432-89831-1
Dewey:
Fic
Language:
English
Reviews:
Kirkus Reviews
(Mon Oct 07 00:00:00 CDT 2024)
When her estranged exâreality-star younger sister turns up shoeless and dead of an overdose on a Bronx playground, Lena Scott has to prove to herself-and everyone else-that it was not an accident.Lena may be just 28, but she's as hard-boiled as a millennial gets. A loner, she hasn't had a relationship with her hip-hopâmogul father since she was 4; her mother and grandmother both died five years ago; and she hasn't seen her best friend, who's burying herself in a master's program in nonprofit management at Columbia, in a year. A fan of friends with benefits, she's "never been big on relationships." She doesn't even do social media except to keep tabs on her sister, Desiree, another exile from her life after Desiree's DUI two years ago. Since the police have zero interest in pursuing what Lena knows are suspicious circumstances around Desiree's demise, she hits the streets, uptown and down, by foot and bike, mass transit, and Uber, tracking down leads with baby sister's friends, flings, and-uncomfortably for her-family. If the first 60 pages have a few too many implausibilities (ubiquitous dashing reporters) and bad similes ("her eyes were as dry as my sex life") and the last 60 devolve into eye-glazing digital forensics ("I was about to close Safari when I noticed the GoFundMe site") and a rushed, too-pat end, everything in between crackles. The writing is sharp, the commentary wry, and Lena is irresistible: "I'd never wanted to see a cop more in my twenty-eight years of being Black."Come for the not-so-bad whodunit, stay for the whip-smart, heart-hurt, very entertaining heroine.
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Kirkus Reviews
(Mon Oct 07 00:00:00 CDT 2024)
A twisty, voice-driven thriller for fans of Megan Miranda and Jessica Knoll, in which no one bats an eye when a Black reality TV star is found dead in the Bronx--except her estranged half-sister, whose refusal to believe the official story leads her on a dangerous search for the truth. When the body of disgraced reality TV star Desiree Pierce is found on a playground in the Bronx the morning after her 25th birthday party, the police and the media are quick to declare her death an overdose. It's a tragedy, certainly, but not a crime. But Desiree's half-sister Lena Scott knows that can't be the case. A graduate student at Columbia, Lena has spent the past decade forging her own path far from the spotlight, but some facts about Desiree just couldn't have changed since their childhood. And Desiree would never travel above 125th Street. So why is no one listening to her? Despite the bitter truth that the two haven't spoken in two years, torn apart by Desiree's partying and by their father, Mel, a wealthy and influential hip-hop mogul, Lena becomes determined to find justice for her sister, even if it means untangling her family's darkest secrets--or ending up dead herself.