Let me state this once and for all about cops. As far as black people are concerned, the police are little more than glorified baggage handlers—with badges, guns, a license to use them and itchy trigger fingers. They don’t make laws. That’s the job of Congresspeople. They don’t mete out justice. That’s decided in the courtroom, with juries, judges and attorneys. As far as cops are concerned, suspects are guilty until proven innocent not vice versa.
Police officers are the intermediaries between law and justice. They’re expected to catch suspected wrongdoers, slam them down in interrogation rooms and arrive at a conclusion about the guilty parties. If they’re really good, they can wring a “confession” out of innocent people.
Referring to the aforementioned baggage handler analogy, if you’re arriving at an airport, you don’t want to be sitting in the lounge area for hours waiting for your gear to arrive. You want it quickly, you want to get out of there and you don’t want any hassle or lost luggage.
So it is with the criminal justice system. Police officers are aware that they’re working on the taxpayers’s dime and your average citizen wants a case, especially a murder case, wrapped up quickly. They’re not going to stand by calmly telling the police to take their time and make certain they’ve sifted through all the clues before coming to a “verdict”. They want justice done fast; they’ve often concluded who the guilty party may be even before the police do.
So when three boys of Promise Prep find themselves accused of a murder, they’re not surprised that the fingers are pointed at them. They’re all boys of color, they’ve been written up for minor infractions of school policy and the harsh way they’re treated at school by the principal makes them handy suspects when the man turns up dead.
The book switches POVs from one boy to another and various other people. The character voices ring clearly from the page as each manifests their inner thoughts. Parents or guardians are staunch in their defense (predictable statements like “not my kid” are rife). Others have their doubts about the system in which the boys find themselves. Internal pressures (like stress nosebleeds) and external ones (gang members hovering too close and the ever-present poverty line) contribute to the tension rising in these pages.
So why the two-star rating? It’s because of the tired trope of the kids deciding to solve the mystery by themselves. Yes, my opinion on the cops means that they dare not go to the police with their findings. But, as their discoveries get more concrete, their alibis become more solid and outside circumstances (like a mis-taken firearm) become apparent, you’d think at some point these adolescents would go to the cops and present what they know. This “meddling kids” shenanigans are ever so tiring to read and nerve-wracking as well. At least, they avoid the common mistake made in Agatha Christie by confronting a suspected murderer—oh wait, no. they don’t.
There are happy endings anyway, unlike the depressing novel “Locust Lane” in which a murderer gets off scott free and a member of a minority group is pressured into a guilty plea for a crime he didn’t commit. But this novel almost goes from being a character-driven drama to a cartoonish Mystery Machine plot.
It was a good story. It’s just not great enough for me to recommend wholeheartedly.
Police officers are the intermediaries between law and justice. They’re expected to catch suspected wrongdoers, slam them down in interrogation rooms and arrive at a conclusion about the guilty parties. If they’re really good, they can wring a “confession” out of innocent people.
Referring to the aforementioned baggage handler analogy, if you’re arriving at an airport, you don’t want to be sitting in the lounge area for hours waiting for your gear to arrive. You want it quickly, you want to get out of there and you don’t want any hassle or lost luggage.
So it is with the criminal justice system. Police officers are aware that they’re working on the taxpayers’s dime and your average citizen wants a case, especially a murder case, wrapped up quickly. They’re not going to stand by calmly telling the police to take their time and make certain they’ve sifted through all the clues before coming to a “verdict”. They want justice done fast; they’ve often concluded who the guilty party may be even before the police do.
So when three boys of Promise Prep find themselves accused of a murder, they’re not surprised that the fingers are pointed at them. They’re all boys of color, they’ve been written up for minor infractions of school policy and the harsh way they’re treated at school by the principal makes them handy suspects when the man turns up dead.
The book switches POVs from one boy to another and various other people. The character voices ring clearly from the page as each manifests their inner thoughts. Parents or guardians are staunch in their defense (predictable statements like “not my kid” are rife). Others have their doubts about the system in which the boys find themselves. Internal pressures (like stress nosebleeds) and external ones (gang members hovering too close and the ever-present poverty line) contribute to the tension rising in these pages.
So why the two-star rating? It’s because of the tired trope of the kids deciding to solve the mystery by themselves. Yes, my opinion on the cops means that they dare not go to the police with their findings. But, as their discoveries get more concrete, their alibis become more solid and outside circumstances (like a mis-taken firearm) become apparent, you’d think at some point these adolescents would go to the cops and present what they know. This “meddling kids” shenanigans are ever so tiring to read and nerve-wracking as well. At least, they avoid the common mistake made in Agatha Christie by confronting a suspected murderer—oh wait, no. they don’t.
There are happy endings anyway, unlike the depressing novel “Locust Lane” in which a murderer gets off scott free and a member of a minority group is pressured into a guilty plea for a crime he didn’t commit. But this novel almost goes from being a character-driven drama to a cartoonish Mystery Machine plot.
It was a good story. It’s just not great enough for me to recommend wholeheartedly.