This John Jordan Prequel Needs Some "Oomph!"

Innocent Blood - Michael Lister

One line from Kurt Vonnegut’s “Welcome to the Monkey House” was running through my head as I read Michael Lister’s Innocent Blood: “The Foxy Grandpa shoehorned himself into the scene…” Never mind that protagonist John Jordan is but a stripling in his late teens instead of a grandpa, Lister still managed to shoehorn the boy into early-‘80s Atlanta, complete with a face-to-face meeting with serial killer Wayne Williams. Give us a break…

The title is the seventh in the John Jordan mystery series – some quick sleuthing reveals that it’s a prequel set well before the first in the series; intended to provide insight into Jordan's formative years. According to reviews of Lister’s other work (all of which have “blood” in the title), Jordan’s a “reluctant detective” type; a minister who keeps having to solve murders. I don’t know that for sure, and I don’t intend to find out… 

Tribalism in 1970s Atlanta: Karin Slaughter's "Cop Town"

Cop Town - Karin Slaughter

Atlanta, Georgia, 1975: it's a city undergoing change, but not in every department. The cop shop may be the worst, awash with good ol' boys who still think the darkies should stay in their place and that a woman is only good for one thing - and that thing certainly ain't police work. As Cop Town opens, the fifth policeman in recent weeks lies bleeding to death, shot by the hand known only as The Shooter. 

Into this steaming morass steps newly-minted patrol officer Kate Murphy, a gorgeous and marvelously stacked woman with two big secrets: one, she's a widow and two, she's not Irish. She was born Kaitlyn Herschel, Dutch and - gasp - Jewish.  Murphy's new partner is the brother of the man whose patrol partner bled out on page one, and the niece of the goodest and oldest of those good old boys that run the station house. As Murphy struggles to bear up under the avalanche of harassment, she learns that even her sisters in arms won't be much help. Yet it's the novice investigator who discovers The Shooter's pattern - and it's the rookie who just might be his next victim.