Being Black And Gay In Los Angeles

"There was a time, my uncle Syl [a retired actor in Black Gay Hollywood] once told me, when gay men in Los Angeles lived as much, if not more, on the margins as black folks. But if things got too hot, white gays always had the option to go back into the closet, back to passing themselves off as masters of the universe. Not so their black counterparts, who at the end of the day were still black, still on the outside looking in."--LAPD detective Charlotte Justice (fictional character), from Inner City Blues by Paula L. Woods (W.W. Norton, 1999), Page 269.

I am always amazed that black women writers like Paula L. Woods and Gloria Naylor are more open to including black gay and lesbian characters in their fiction than many of their black male peers.

The New York Public Library Eliminates Overdue Fines

Better Late Than Never by Jenn McKinlay (Berkley Prime Crime, 2016), is part of her series called Library Lover's Mysteries, featuring Lindsey Norris, a young woman who is director of the public library in Briar Creek, a small town on the Connecticut shore.

The Briar Creek Public Library is holding its first annual fine amnesty day event, which brings a flood of overdue books, including one that's twenty years overdue and was checked out by a popular high school  English teacher around the time of her death. The book, after twenty years, is in pristine condition. Was the killer responsible for returning the book? Lindsey, who's also an amateur sleuth, intends to find out.

In the meantime, Ms. Cole, "an old-school librarian," who is "nicknamed 'the lemon' because of her puckered disposition," fervently disapproves of the fine amnesty day.

Ms. Cole comes across to Lindsey as "a punitive sort who enjoyed using fines and shushing to curb their patrons' naughty behavior."

I can only imagine how Ms. Cole, the "old-school librarian," would react to the New York Public Library's recent decision to follow other library systems by doing away with overdue fines altogether. The library felt the fines were burdensome to its low-income patrons and prevented them from adequately using the library and its many services.

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.

A Secret Police Ritual

For those of us outside of law enforcement, there are police rituals known only to cops. One of them is the K party, mentioned in Michael Connelly's crime novel, The Late Show (Little, Brown and Co., 2017), featuring Renee Ballard, a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. (The book is a page-turner.)

What is a K party, you ask? It stands for kill party. Connelly describes it this way: "It had once been a secret tradition for officers to gather and drink after one of them had killed someone. It was a way of releasing the tension of a life-and-death encounter."

Connelly probably learned of this "secret tradition" of the LAPD during his time as a newspaper reporter.

It's not far-fetched to assume that such a ritual still exists in the LAPD and other big-city police departments. I'm sure it would be almost impossible to get a police officer today to admit to its existence or their participation in one, fearing the reaction of the public as well as elected officials.

It's also not far-fetched to assume that tensions between the police and the black community being what they are, for the members of that community to say that the "K" in K party stood for the Klan, as in the Ku Klux Klan.

A postscript: The late show referred to in the book's title is presumably what the LAPD in real life call the 11 pm to 7 am shift.