American Heroin

Edgar finalist Love’s outstanding sequel to 2017’s Lola delves deeper into the complicated persona of Lola Vasquez, who’s a loving mother to her adopted eight-year-old daughter, Lucy, and godmother to her community, often paying for groceries or the rent for neighbors in her apartment complex in Huntington Park, a “South Central–adjacent suburb of L.A.” On the other hand, she’s also a ruthless drug lord. Lola easily reconciles her two sides. She lives modestly and punishes anyone abusing women and children, but her criminal tendencies overshadow her good deeds and affect those close to her, including her brother, Hector, who’s in prison because she framed him for murder, and her secret business partner, Andrea Dennison Whitely, who’s an L.A. prosecutor. When a pregnant woman begs her to keep her abusive husband in prison, Lola inadvertently starts a drug war with a rival gang. Love crafts a first-rate plot, but this crime thriller’s real strength is the character study of Lola, who eschews preconceived notions of what a drug lord should be. Agent: Eve Attermann, WME. (Feb.)