Fog and Fury

Lucky us suspense readers. If you don’t know Rachel Howzell Hall’s books, then this novel is one fantastic introduction. If you do know Hall, then you will be thrilled to learn that this is the first in a series, the Haven Thrillers series featuring Sonny, a former LAPD cop who has just moved to the idyllic community of Haven (along with her mother, who, with memory issues, is quite a handful). It was high time that Sonny got out of Los Angeles, and joining her godfather’s PI business in Haven—one vowel short of heaven—on the bucolic Northern California coast seems the perfect option. First job? Locating Figgy, a missing goldendoodle. In seeking out Figgy, Sonny comes across her ex-boyfriend, the super-rich Cooper Sutton, a powerful force in Haven. But it’s the discovery of 17-year-old Xander Monroe, one of only four African Americans in Haven, dead on a hiking trail, that really wakes up Sonny. Xander was a super-smart 17-year-old physics student and a star football player with a career at UCLA ahead of him. So why is no one paying attention to his murder? Sonny is one smart, tenacious, Black, woman with her own personal issues to fight against. Powerful social commentary and strong suspense make for one excellent novel.