Hunting A Serial Killer In 1920s Harlem

I love the Harlem Renaissance and I also love mystery novels. When those two loves are combined, I am overjoyed.

So you can imagine how I felt when I read in Publishers Weekly (April 19, 2021) that a mystery novel set in Harlem in 1926 was scheduled for publication in June.

In a sidebar interview, Nekesa Afia, author of Dead Dead Girls: A Harlem Renaissance Mystery (Berkley Prime Crime), stated that she "love[s] the Harlem Renaissance" because "it was this period of growth, and art, and music, and fashion."

Afia continued: "That post-WWI generation had such brilliance and creativity, and they were so alive and fun even though they had just gone through a war, and the world was a mess."

Dead Dead Girls is Afia's debut novel, the first in a series. Its protagonist, Louise Lloyd, a showgirl and waitress--who is black and lesbian--helps the police track down a serial killer of black girls.

The accompanying review notes that Afia "couples tender relationships with strong senses of era and place." (Will Harlem Renaissance figures like Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Countee Cullen, and Claude McKay make a cameo appearance?)

If Dead Dead Girls is as interesting as it sounds, I can't wait to read it. And I will definitely be looking forward to other books in this new series.

Police Gunfire Is Not A Good Response To Mental Illness

In April of 2020, there was a report broadcast on New York's WCBS Newsradio Eight-Eighty about a man who told police he had been diagnosed with COVID-19. After revealing that information, he came at them with a knife, an apparent attempt at suicide by cop. He was shot twice in the torso.

Couldn't the cops have found a better way to subdue this man who was obviously experiencing mental distress? Why weren't less lethal alternatives used such as a taser, pepper spray, stun grenades, a bean bag shooter, rubber bullets, or some kind of fishermen's net?

Does Conversion Therapy Change Only Gays?

The thing about conversion therapy that people don't seem to acknowledge is that if it's possible to change someone from being gay or bisexual to being heterosexual, wouldn't reverse conversion therapy apply to straight people? I don't think conversion therapy, if it's possible, is a one-way street. Just a thought.