Synopsis

Delia Pitts expertly writes about family, race, class, and grief in her mysteries. Vandy Myrick captured readers’ and critics’ hearts in Trouble in Queenstown. She returns in Death of an Ex, where Vandy tries to piece together what brought her ex-husband’s life to an end.

Queenstown, New Jersey, feels big when you need help and tiny when you want privacy. For Vandy Myrick, that’s both a blessing and a curse. Now that Vandy’s back in “Q-Town”, her services as her hometown’s only Black woman private investigator have earned her more celebrity—or notoriety—than she figured.

Keeping busy with work helps Vandy deal with the grief of losing her daughter, stitching the seams, cementing the gaps. The memories will always remain, and they come crashing back to the surface when her ex-husband, Phil Bolden, walks back into her life. Promising everything, returning home, restoring family. Until she answers her door to the news that Phil has been murdered. And Vandy decides Phil is now her client.

It’s hard to separate the Phil that Vandy knew with the one Queenstown did. She sees him—and their daughter—in Phil’s son, who attends a prestigious local high school. She sees the layers of a complicated marriage with his wife. She sees all of Phil’s various parent, husband, businessman, philanthropist. But which role got him killed?

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Review

The second in this mystery series was just as good as the first. It is filled with characters who are smart, sassy, and not afraid to get their hands dirty.

Vandy reconnects with her ex-husband, the father of her deceased daughter. There are still sparks, but he is married to someone else. That doesn’t stop him, because he is a player, and he doesn’t care who he hurts, especially not his wife or son. When he is killed after leaving her, she vows to uncover his killer.

There are many moving pieces to this mystery. Multiple potential suspects and uncovering true motives. While I didn’t guess the killer until near the end, I was correct, but that didn’t mean I didn’t suspect other characters!

I found it interesting that no one has hired Vandy to find Phil’s killer. Perhaps that was her choice as the ex-wife, and what her daughter would probably want her to do. She also learns some truths about why he wasn’t around while their daughter was growing up.

I liked the interactions between Vandy and the other characters, especially Ingrid and Tariq. I think she gravitated towards them since they reminded her of her daughter.

This book brought back memories for Vandy, both good and bad. She learned a few things that helped put a little closure on some events.

We give this book 4 paws up.

About the Author

I’ve been enchanted with books from my earliest days; one of my first memories is of sitting on the floor in the golden motes of dust flying around the booklined porch my father used as his office. Second grade found me crafting a pastiche on the great Walter Farley novel, “The Black Stallion.” I sold that story, with original cover painting, for .02 cents at our school’s spring book fair. My writing took a turn from animal lore when I discovered Sherlock Holmes in seventh grade. Agatha Christie, Langston Hughes, Margery Allingham, P.D. James, Walter Mosley, Ralph Ellison — so many fine practitioners of detective and other fiction have influenced me over the years. Perhaps the biggest single influence, however, was my long-standing love affair with newspapers. I worked for professional papers in the rough-and-tumble news town of Chicago since my late teen years.

Pursuing a doctorate in African history and a career in the United States Foreign Service reinforced my interest in people, places, and writing. Although the settings were not quite as exotic as those in West Africa, my subsequent career as a university administrator took me to Texas, New Jersey, and around the world, recruiting international students and promoting study abroad programs. I jumped into the world of fiction writing through the stimulating and fun adventure of fan fiction. To date, I’ve published over sixty fan fiction stories since 2012, under the pen name Blacktop.

My wonderful husband, who’s traveled this journey with me, has been a source of insight and common sense for decades. And our twin sons –smart, sensitive, and fun –are the inspiration for everything I do.

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