An Aaron Gunner Mystery Series by Gar Anthony Haywood
An Aaron Gunner Mystery #2
Fear of the Dark
Gar Anthony Haywood
Winner of the Best First Private Eye Novel Competition, this story introduces Gunner, detective turned electrician re-turned detective, who investigates the murder of two blacks by a white kid. The killer is found dead and it begins to look as though events are politically motivated.From Publishers WeeklyWinner of the 1988 Best First P.I. Novel Contest, this promising debut introduces black private investigator Aaron Gunner, hired to find the white man who walked into the Acey Deuce bar in South Central Los Angeles to blow away the owner, J. T. Tennell and Buddy Dorris of the Brothers of Volition, a black activist group. Buddy's sister, Verna Gail, feels the murder isn't getting enough police attention and hires Gunner, a P.I. who's trying to quit the business. He discovers that the killer is Denny Townsend, a white supremacist working on the fringes of a campaign to elect Lew Henshaw, a politician running on a law-and-order platform. Before Gunner can talk to Townsend, he finds himshot to death in Gunner's car. The cops are suspicious of Gunner, who soon is framed for the killing of Townsend's friend and possible accomplice, Stanley Ferris. To save his own neck, and to keep L.A. from erupting into racial violence, Gunner must find the connection between the politician, a local drug dealer and the Brother's charismatic leader, Roland Mayes. Haywood has a good ear for the sour voice of the true private eye and the sense of tired hopelessness of the underclass they have always served. One hopes to see more of Gunner. Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Read online
An Aaron Gunner Mystery #4
You Can Die Trying
Gar Anthony Haywood
The apparent suicide of an unpopular, bigoted, former LAPD cop, Jack McGovern, has the most unlikely protagonist fighting racism, violence, and hostility to bring to light the truth about the ex-cop's death in the latest Aaron Gunner novel. Reprint.From Publishers WeeklyIn the third novel to feature African American L.A. private investigator Aaron Gunner (after Not Long for This World ), a white cop much loathed in the black community apparently guns down an unarmed black kid in a dark alley following a robbery. After being publicly crucified, the policeman puts a bullet through his head and dies unmourned. But then an eyewitness confides in Gunner that he saw the kid shoot twice before the cop fired and asks the PI to investigate. In need of a client, Gunner reluctantly takes the volatile case. He finds the gun (a dummy that shoots blanks) and a Latina policewoman willing to listen to this discomfiting new evidence. Barely pausing for narrative breath, the author adds intriguing elements to his plot: the eyewitness isn't a thoroughly convincing player; his brother is beaten up; another kid involved in the robbery is tight-lipped; the dead boy's uncle is a gambler with big debts; and most people in the black community are ready to let this possible injustice pass, believing a larger justice has been served by the cop's death. Gunner is a rarity in recent detective fiction: soured, yet utterly believable, tough and resourceful without being cartoonishly overblown. This pulsating mystery strengthens an already forceful series. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Kirkus ReviewsEight months after racist cop Jack McGovern guns down 12-year-old liquor-store thief Lendell Washington and insists--despite the evidence--that the kid fired on him first, McGovern's remorseful suicide flushes out Mitchell Flowers, a cowed, guilty witness who corroborates McGovern's unlikely story and hires L.A. shamus Aaron Gunner (Fear of the Dark, Not Long for This World) to prove it. McGovern's LAPD colleagues--including Danny Kubo, an IAD investigator who owes him big--weren't crazy about McGovern, and don't welcome Gunner's attempts to exonerate him; and the Washington family-- including Lendell's cousin Noah Ford, now doing time for the robbery- -are convinced he's a cop trying to torpedo their pending lawsuit. Only Deanna Lugo, the partner McGovern was breaking in when he responded to the scene, helps Gunner, in bed and out, untangle a nifty web of treachery and coverups to lay the case to rest for good. Haywood's freshest, leanest yet--and it won't be hurt by the Rodney King echoes. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Read online