cover image Down and Dirty: Another Landlord's Tale

Down and Dirty: Another Landlord's Tale

Gammy L. Singer. Kensington Publishing Corporation, $15 (304pp) ISBN 978-0-7582-0895-8

Harlem landlord Amos Brown is back in Singer's follow-up to A Landlord's Tale. It's Christmastime, 1980 and Brown is trying to protect his corner of Harlem while the crack epidemic takes hold an as-yet-unnamed disease cuts down the city's gay population and a loon guns down John Lennon. While raising funds at a poker game, Brown gets a call to bail out his mentor Deacon Steadwell, in jail for the stabbing death of a pimp. Steadwell may be a career thief, but Brown knows he's no murderer. While attempting to exonerate Steadwell, Brown uncovers a plot that ties together stolen furs with stolen diamonds, a prominent Harlem brothel and the Russian mafia. Singer paints a vivid and gritty picture of vintage Harlem: there are neither angels nor saints and appearances are usually deceiving. In the end, this is a convincing love story about Brown's neighborhood. Readers of urban fiction will appreciate the snappy pacing and compromised characters.