Darktown - Hardcover

Fine Southern storytelling meets hard-boiledcrime in a tale that connects an overlooked chapter of history to our owncontinuing struggles with race today.--Charles Frazier "author of Cold Mountain "

"A brilliant blending of crime, mystery, and American history (Atlanta, just after WWII). Terrific entertainment."--Stephen King

From the very first page of Darktown, I was stunned, mesmerized, and instantly a huge fan of Tom Mullen. Beyond the history and the thrilling mystery, the book's soul lies in the burgeoning partnership (and dare I say friendship) at the center of the book. It's a reminder of the ties that cut across race in America. There is nothing I love more in a book than hope.--Attica Locke "author of Pleasantville "

"One incendiary image ignites the next in this highly combustible procedural, set in the city's rigidly segregated black neighborhoods during the pre-civil-rights era and written with a ferocious passion that'll knock the wind out of you."--New York Times Book Review

"Mullen is a wonderful architect of intersecting plotlines and unexpected answers. But you also want justice, which you know neither Mullen nor our own time can provide...Compelling works of fiction such as Mullen's walk a fine line between art that reminds us of horrors past and art that trades on them with pieces too unfinished to play with."--Washington Post

As his previous historical novels have proven, Mullen is skilled at bringing the past to life, both socially and visually... fans of well-written literary thrillers will want this expert example.--Library Journal

Mullen uses the lens of a twisted murder mystery to unsettle readers with his unflinching looks at racism in post-WWII Atlanta... This page-turner reads like the best of James Ellroy.--Publisher's Weekly (Starred Review)

"Mullen succeeds in delivering a narrative heartbreakingly irresistible"--Shelf Awareness, Starred Review

Mullen's writing is extremely evocative in bringing the pre-civil rights South to life.--Booklist (Starred Review)

"Gripping.... A complicated crime fiction that melds an intense plot with fully realized characters... Mullen's unflinching description[s] add to the realism and relevance of Darktown."--Associated Press

“One incendiary image ignites the next in this highly combustible procedural...written with a ferocious passion that’ll knock the wind out of you.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Fine Southern storytelling meets hard-boiled crime in a tale that connects an overlooked chapter of history to our own continuing struggles with race today.” —Charles Frazier, bestselling author of Cold Mountain

“This page-turner reads like the best of James Ellroy.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

“In the way the story is told coupled with its heightened racial context, Darktown reminded me of Walter Mosley or a George Pelecanos novel.” —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“High-quality...crime fiction with a nimble sense of history...quick on its feet and vividly drawn.” —Dallas Morning News

“Some books educate, some books entertain, Thomas Mullen’s Darktown is the rare book that does both.” —Huffington Post

The award-winning author of The Last Town on Earth delivers a riveting and elegant police procedural set in 1948 Atlanta, exploring a murder, corrupt police, and strained race relations that feels ripped from today's headlines.

Responding to orders from on high, the Atlanta Police Department is forced to hire its first black officers, including war veterans Lucius Boggs and Tommy Smith. The newly minted policemen are met with deep hostility by their white peers; they aren’t allowed to arrest white suspects, drive squad cars, or set foot in the police headquarters.

When a black woman who was last seen in a car driven by a white man turns up dead, Boggs and Smith suspect white cops are behind it. Their investigation sets them up against a brutal cop, Dunlow, who has long run the neighborhood as his own, and his partner, Rakestraw, a young progressive who may or may not be willing to make allies across color lines. Among shady moonshiners, duplicitous madams, crooked lawmen, and the constant restrictions of Jim Crow, Boggs and Smith will risk their new jobs, and their lives, while navigating a dangerous world—a world on the cusp of great change.

Set in the postwar, pre-civil rights South, and evoking the socially resonant and morally complex crime novels of Dennis Lehane and Walter Mosley, Darktown is a vivid, smart, intricately plotted crime saga that explores the timely issues of race, law enforcement, and the uneven scales of justice.