Streetwhys

After Scavenger and Standalone, Chambers has brought his DC PI Dickie Cornish back to have his smarts tested and his heart trampled on again. Dickie’s clean after “a mishap in college” (Howard University, no less) saw him living as an addict on the streets and in various flophouses. He’s the kind of guy who lets his cat eat mayo and crumbs off his plate, but can put a tough facade on when he has to. When a way-out-of-his-league former classmate, now Deputy Attorney General of the United States, asks him—with the threat of a murder charge from his past if he says no—to find out who’s supplying lethal drugs to the area, he’s back on the streets, tough attitude in place. Readers are in for a layered mystery here, with Dickie moving between tent cities and the Department of Justice to figure out what’s going on, and with figures from his past reappearing and adding to the puzzle and mayhem. Throughout, the Black PI’s failure to fit in his old haunts and new ones creates an atmospheric tension that’s imparted by Dickie’s inner monologue and realistic dialogue with characters of all kinds. Noir fans, look out.