Paula L. Woods Books In Order

Inner City Blues

This debut novel in a new series featuring black LAPD homicide detective Charlotte Justice will make mystery fans wanna holler with delight. Meet Detective Charlotte Justice, a black woman in the very white, very male, and sometimes very racist Los Angeles Police Department. The time is 48 hours into the epochal L.A. riots and she and her fellow officers are exhausted. She saves the curfew breaking black doctor Lance Mitchell from a potentially lethal beating from some white officers only to discover nearby the body of one time radical Cinque Lewis, a thug who years before had murdered her husband and young daughter. Was it a random shooting or was Mitchell responsible? And what had brought Lewis back to a city he’d long since fled? Charlotte’s quest for the truth behind Cinque’s death will set her at odds with the LAPD hierarchy, plunge her into the intricacies of everything from L.A.’s gang banging politics to its black blue bloods, and lead her into deep emotional waters with Mitchell’s partner and her old flame, Dr. Aubrey Scott. In Charlotte Justice, Paula L. Woods has created a tough, tart, but also vulnerable hero*ine sure to draw comparisons to such classic figures as Easy Rawlins and Kinsey Milhone, but a true original as well.

Stormy Weather

Despite her education and training, Charlotte Justice has concluded that being a black female in the Los Angeles Police Department is no day at the beach. Instead, the elite homicide detective’s days are filled with incompetence, bigotry, and the mayhem of the streets. First, Charlotte confronts the work of a self styled angel of mercy that her colleagues helped convict…
and who may have an active accomplice still at large. And now she faces the baffling case of Maynard Duncan, a pioneering African American film director and community activist who was all but forgotten until he was found dead in his elegant Hancock Park home. Was it an accident, murder, or suicide by his own hand or with assistance?As Charlotte unravels Duncan s tangled web of relationships family, friends, business associates, and secret liaisons she finds herself on a journey from Hollywood myth to L.A. reality. It s a journey where Charlotte must risk everything her career, her relationships, even her life to hunt down a murderer hell bent on exacting the ultimate revenge…
. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Dirty Laundry

In her award winning Charlotte Justice novels, Paula L. Woods has created a rare blend of mystery, suspense, and an unflinching social critique of urban, multiethnic America. Featuring an African American homicide detective in the LAPD’s elite Robbery Homicide Division, this new Charlotte Justice novel is a sizzling story of murder, politics, families, and betrayal in the uneasy melting pot of Los Angeles, where everyone has their own…
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Dirty Laundry

For Charlotte and her team, the case begins when a woman s body is found in L.A. s Koreatown district, where a series of robberies and murders has already put besieged merchants on edge. Now the spectacle of a bright, successful young Korean woman found bludgeoned and bound in an alley is stirring fears, passions, and city politics. In the hours after Vicki Park s murder, Charlotte Justice must contend with a complex crime scene and a beleaguered community s hostility toward the police.

Interestingly enough, Vicki like Charlotte lived and worked in two different worlds: her close knit Korean community and the wider political world where she served as a special aide to handsome, media savvy Mike Santos, whose is vying to become L.A. s first Latino mayor. With twenty four candidates running to replace a long standing African American incumbent, the mayor s race is shaping up as a wild brawl, full of dirty tricks and innuendo. Is Vicki s murder connected to the campaign or is the answer to be found in the ethnic enclave that nurtured Vicki and that may now be hiding her killer?

While Charlotte searches for answers, she must also navigate the perils of life in the LAPD, which complicates her personal life, namely her budding relationship with Aubrey Scott, an emergency room physician. Justifying her relentless hunt for Vicki s killer as part of her mission as a homicide detective, Charlotte must face the possibility that her motivation may also be to ease the pain she feels over the violent death of her husband and young daughter years before a possibility that is challenged in unexpected ways.

A powerful story about families and the secrets they keep, Dirty Laundry is a fast paced, deeply human thriller that builds to a powerful climax. Featuring one of the great female characters in detective fiction today, this book is a fascinating portrait of Los Angeles from the streets of Koreatown to the power corridors of City Hall. Dirty Laundry is Paula Woods s richest, most rewarding novel to date.

From the Hardcover edition.

Strange Bedfellows

In LAPD homicide detective Charlotte Justice, acclaimed crime writer Paula L. Woods has created a hero*ine for our times. Caught between her proud African American family and colleagues who still can t deal with diversity, Detective Justice returns to an investigation she once had to leave behind and enters an explosive realm of haunting lies and dangerous truths. Thirteen years ago, Charlotte Justice’s husband and child were murdered in the family s own driveway. Now, following a particularly violent incident involving a fellow officer, Charlotte is on the edge, bedeviled by bloody memories and living on single malt scotch and antacids. But a cold case is bringing her back to work…
and a department shrink is willing to help her through it as long as she is willing to help herself. So Charlotte resumes the hunt for the shooter who gunned down a prominent Republican businessman, his young wife, and two Muslim business associates outside an elegant Los Angeles restaurant. The case has turned hot because Charlotte s initial suspect has suddenly surfaced as the cause of a freak auto accident. The trouble is, the suspect is in a coma and the businessman he presumably shot is still hovering between life and death. Once Charlotte and her colleagues start digging, the investigation careens in unpredictable directions, from the meddling of a smooth talking FBI agent to the bizarre drama unfolding around the victim s family and business. While Charlotte is accustomed to white cops, black cops, and perps of every shade and persuasion, this case is stranger than even she could have guessed. Worst of all, it s also about her, her contentious family, and the Justices terrible secret. In this pivotal installment in her acclaimed series, Paula L. Woods returns at full throttle, weaving a brilliant tale filled with nail biting suspense, twisted relationships, and a strong woman driven by a passion for justice and a hunger for the truth.