Land of Shadows

I was looking for a new police procedural series to read and a friend recommended the Detective Elouise Norton series by Rachel Howzell Hall. This is the first of the, thus-far, four-book series.

Elouise (Lou) is an African-American LAPD homicide detective. She and her new partner Colin Taggert, a recent transfer from Colorado, investigate the death of 17-year-old Monique Darson who is found hanging in an unfinished condo complex. The complex is being built by Napoleon Crase, a man Lou suspects in the disappearance of her own sister thirty years earlier. Can Lou investigate the Darson case without bias? Can she find out the truth behind her sister’s disappearance?

Lou is the first-person narrator so we gather information as she does. show more The only advantage the reader has is some chapters told by the anonymous killer. Those chapters do give some clues, though mostly they suggest who he isn’t.

What will motivate me to return to the series is the character of Lou Norton. She is intelligent and high-spirited. She is told that on the street she is known as Lockjaw because “’Once you’re on a case, you don’t let go.’” Lou describes herself as “’sweet as apple pie’” but a colleague qualifies that description: “’Apple pie laced with arsenic and rusty razor blades.” She is respected by her colleagues because she is good at her job: “Not to brag, but I had solved 90 percent of the investigations I had led. Pretty good for a girl.’” Lou’s troubled relationship with her husband adds a personal subplot that will undoubtedly be developed further.

I especially love Lou’s irreverent sense of humour. She brags, “I could spot a fake Chanel handbag quicker than I could spot a hooker on fire.” She mocks her partner who concludes a suspect is a drug dealer with such certainty that “he folded his arms and nodded as though he’d just discovered Presbyterians on Uranus.” She mocks herself: “I was sweating like Kobe Bryant in Game 7 of the NBA finals against the Celtics and my reserve tank of patience had only three drops left.” She mocks witnesses who are not forthcoming, calling one a “’goddamned dingleberry’”, later explaining that a dingleberry is “’a piece of poop that sticks to ass hair.’”

I did have difficulty with some of the slang. For example, “strawberry” and “twink” and “chickenhead” had me checking a slang dictionary. There are numerous pop culture references; for instance, Lou tells one suspect, “’This ain’t a TV show and you ain’t Stringer Bell, so stop with the bad-ass-thug routine. You’re from Carson, son.’” An older man will be described as “’old enough to remember the last episode of M*A*S*H” or as someone who hasn’t smiled “since Cheers went off the air.” Some of the rap and hip hop references left me lost (KRS-One and Chuck D), and “Doin’ the Dougie”, meant nothing to me until I consulted Google.

I will definitely be checking out the other books in the series.

Note: Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski). show less

The minute I began reading Land of Shadows, Lou Norton's voice pulled me right into the story. She's a black woman who grew up in a dangerous part of Los Angeles, and she worked hard to get out of there, get an education, and better herself. She and her husband have money, nice cars, a very nice home. Lou wants for no material possessions, yet she's right back in the 'hood working hard to put the bad guys behind bars. Lou may have gotten out, but she's determined to give back, to help those who couldn't get out.

Lou is definitely the star of this show, but I also liked her supporting cast. Her boss, Rodriguez, is a fair man who looks her right in the eye and tells her "I just want you to be as good as you can be." He knows how she feels show more about Napoleon Crase and makes her work twice as hard to prove everything she says about the millionaire. Her new partner, Colin Taggert, starts out as a bumbling newbie full of bogus ideas, and it was refreshing to see his gradual change. Hall's sense of humor shines brightest when Lou and Colin don't see eye-to-eye, although at times it may be humor more easily understood by women: "I climbed out of the car before he could explain. Didn't he hear me? I was in no mood to kiss boo-boos and hand out juice boxes. There were worse things in life than being sent from a living room."

The investigation in Land of Shadows is filled with twists, turns, and surprises, and I certainly wasn't expecting the identity of whodunnit. With Rachel Howzell Hall's skill at storytelling and creating characters, I know I'm going to be visiting Lou Norton's part of Los Angeles regularly. show less

A refreshing lack of stereotypes I read a lot so it's always a treat to find a book I really enjoy from a previously unknown (to me) author. This police procedural/thriller features a strong, smart & compassionate female protagonist trying to juggle a demanding career with a failing marriage.
Elouise "Lou" Norton is a LAPD homicide detective who has risen above a childhood riddled with poverty & tragedy. She grew up in "the jungle", a bleak & sullen area of the city where career options include gangsta, teen pregnancy & welfare. It's also where she lost her sister. Twenty five years ago, Tori disappeared from behind Napoleon Crase's liquor store & it's haunted Lou ever since.
So when a teenage girl is found hanging on one of Crase's show more construction sites, Lou is more than a little interested. 
She has always believed he knows more about Tori than he let on. In the interim, he's become a wealthy & powerful businessman...one with a rep for getting physical with pretty young things. As Lou & her partner Det. Colin Taggert start to dig, another girl is found dead.
In alternate chapters, the story is told by the anonymous killer. The reader travels with him as he trolls for his next victim & becomes fascinated with Lou. It's obvious he's ill, fighting off hallucinations & physical tics with a steady diet of booze & coke. We also meet his companion, a young woman who knows what he's done & caters to his every need. 
It's a complex plot with many ties between the past & present. Several characters have secrets they've kept hidden for years & the author does a good job of slowly revealing their histories. There is a large diverse cast ranging from tech wizards to gang bangers & their respective neighbourhoods are well described in atmospheric & gritty prose. 
I really enjoyed this. It's refreshing to encounter a female cop who wasn't portrayed as the stereotypical bitch on wheels, always at odds with her male counterparts. She's not an iconoclastic loner with her name engraved on a bar stool. Lou is smart, acerbic & popular with her colleagues. She shows up each day armed with a gun & the black humour that's as necessary as kevlar for protection ("I could spot a fake Chanel handbag quicker than I could spot a hooker on fire").
Her achilles heel is her husband who creates popular video games. They've been married for 11 years & his success affords them an affluent lifestyle. Unfortunately, he's not a big fan of monogamy & Lou suspects he's fallen off the wagon again (quick moment of your time, Lou....kick this rat bastard to the curb....NOW). Other characters include her BFF's Lena & Syeeda, a freelance reporter featured in the book "No One Knows You're Here". Their relationships come across as genuine, the kind of gal pals who have your back.
Colin is an unwitting source of humour. He's a recent transplant from Colorado & couldn't be a bigger fish out of water. Compared to his home town, LA might as well be Mars & his character is the perfect foil for the street smart Lou.
Except for chapters narrated by the killer, the story is told from Lou's POV. The prose is fluid, descriptive & witty as we accompany her throughout the investigation. Her wry comments concerning the city & its' inhabitants run the gamut from funny to poignant, making the reader feel as if they're in the car with her, riding shotgun.
If pressed, I had two minor quibbles with the story. One concerns the sister of the first victim. Without divulging more of the plot ( there are some startling revelations in store), she begins her own investigation with Lou's tacit support & this just didn't ring true for me. I get that Lou identifies with being the sister left behind but I doubt any homicide detective would encourage a family member to actively search for a dangerous killer.
The other is the amount of space dedicated to flashbacks into Lou & Tori's childhood. We revisit much of their life before Tori was snatched & I felt this slowed the pace & interrupted the mounting tension of the current investigation. However, other readers may enjoy this in-depth history so I think it's just a matter of taste. 
By the end, our killer is uncovered & Lou is left reeling from what she learns of Tori's fate. It's a stylish, fast paced read that keeps you turning the pages. I would definitely pick up a sequel to find out what's in store next for Lou & Co. show less

Land of Shadows is the 1st book in the Detective Elouise Norton series. I've read two of this authors books previously (both standalones) and enjoyed them so much that I knew that I wanted to dive into her backlist. I'm really glad that I did because I enjoyed this book a lot. Lou's character is one that I instantly liked. She didn't take crap from anyone and knew that she was good at her job for a lot of different reasons. I love a mystery series focused on a strong female lead detective - this is like my reading catnip. Lou has a darker past though because years ago her sister went missing and she still doesn't have the answers she has been searching for. Then she gets assigned to this case and it seems like the two cases are tied show more together even though her sister went missing so long ago. This book was a definite page turner! I found myself really hooked by the premise and the way that this book was set up. Parts of the book were set in the past leading up to Lou's sister's disappearance and then the other parts of the book were focused on Lou's current investigation. I had no idea where it was all going and I couldn't stop reading as I just had to find out. My one complaint with this book was there was a bit of inappropriate language (I really don't know how else to explain it). This is an older book - it was published back in 2014 - so maybe it wasn't considered offensive back then but I did want to mention it. One of the things that this book did so well though is that it made me sit back and think. The author makes a point of looking at the reasons why the police didn't really look into her sister's disappearance that closely - it's a poignant look at how differently these types of case are treated when it is a girl of woman of color that goes missing. I definitely will be continuing on with this series. Rachel Howzell Hall is an author not to be missed!

Bottom Line: A really solid beginning to this new to me mystery series!

CW: Suicide, murder, cheating, derogatory language, loss of a child, death

Disclosure: I checked this book out from my local library. Honest thoughts are my own. show less

Having been a bit of a fan of one of her earlier books - NO ONE KNOWS YOU'RE HERE - the chance to read LAND OF SHADOWS was gratefully accepted (courtesy of NetGalley). Set in Los Angeles, with another strong, flawed, believable and extremely likeable central female protagonist this writer has a fabulous way of making that world come alive. There's a strong sense of place, particularly in this book, set as it is in that sort of fringe world between deprived communities and incoming gentrification, stalled because of economic downturn and malaise. Add to that a couple of very different central protagonists - Lou Norton from the neighbourhood, a child from a difficult childhood, strong, flawed, resilient in many ways and vulnerable and show more self-destructive in others. The incoming cop - her new country boy partner - a bit of a fish out of water in the inner-city, somebody who has much to prove and not a lot of ideas on how to go about that.

Given she's the central character in this book, Norton holds up her end of the bargain very well. After her sister goes missing when they are children, she's spent her life and her career looking closely at the man she suspects was behind that disappearance. The fact that his name appears again in this latest murder gives her much to be wary of. Obsession can make a poor investigative tool and she's aware of that, whilst also utterly committed to finding what happened to her sister as well as this latest victim. She's also dealing with a serially unfaithful husband, and the implications that he has on her "happy ever after plans" once she finds out what did happen all those years ago.

She's a bundle of contradictions needless to say. Strong in the job, determined and quite forceful, she's a good mentor for the new cop on the block, albeit prickly and inclined towards sarcasm. Yet her home life, as luxurious and physically comfortable as it is, is a car crash. The fact that she stays anywhere near her husband might be a difficult dilemma for some readers to process.

Within the personal, and the interactions between the two central characters, there's a reasonable, slowish and very procedural investigation. The identification of the victim, the following up of her movements, the way her family operates, the connections between her family members, the past, the present, suspects, places and events all build a picture that eventually develops into a solution. Sure, some of these connections are predictable, and the creepy criminal voice lurking around the edges is a device that's been done to death, but much of that is carried by the strength of the characters and the by-play between Norton and Taggert and, in particular, her personal situation. There's some gentle poking of fun at all levels throughout this book. Norton doesn't take herself too seriously which really helps with some of the emotional turmoil, and the country boy daftness of Taggert never steps over the line into caricature.

Contradictions, inconsistencies and the personal and professional are part of what Hall explores with great precision in this novel. There's much in all of these characters that is required to add up to the whole. Part of what makes Norton a great cop is her compassion, her ability to see the grey, and her understanding that sometimes things aren't straightforward. Part of what makes these two characters feel like that should have a long, and very fruitful fictional life is the strengths, weaknesses and reality of both of them.

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/review-land-shadows-rachel-howzell-hall show less

Detective Elouise Norton has been filled with guilt and grief over what happened to her sister 25 years ago. That tragedy is the core of her being and powers her work as a detective for the LAPD in Land Of Shadows by Rachel Howzell Hall.

It is a Wednesday night in June when LAPD Detective Elouise “Lou” Norton of the Southwest Division is called away from her Krav Maga class. A class that might help save her life one day is interrupted about a possible suicide discovered in some newly constructed condos. The old neighborhood is changing and gentrifying with new money flowing in sweeping out what was there. New condos are being built near where Detective Norton grew up as a kid. In a somewhat strange coincidence the condo property show more under development is owned by one Napoleon Crase. The same Napoleon Crase who, as owner of the local convenience store, was one of the last people to see her sister alive all those years ago.

The same Napoleon Crase who Detective Norton has believed all these years was responsible for her sister’s disappearance. As time permitted she has investigated him since joining the LAPD and she remains unable to prove his involvement or bring her sister home as she promised her mom long ago.

As she investigates she slowly realizes that there are links between what probably happened to her sister and the clear and obvious murder of today. The unidentified victim initially reported as a “Jane Doe” suicide was clearly not a suicide. The person or persons who staged the scene intended to mislead investigators, but Detective Norton is sure it was a murder. Norton firmly believes that back in the day of the mid-eighties nobody in the LAPD cared if an African-American girl vanished or was murdered. In the here and now of twenty-five years later, Norton does and intends to solve the current case as well as the someday bring her sister home.

While Land of Shadows hits the classic-- loved one vanishes and surviving family member becomes a cop to find justice -- trope as well as couple of other ones, author Rachel Howzell Hall puts a fresh spin on them and creates an intense and compelling read. A touch of sarcasm, often bitter, fuels the Norton character with the result of the occasional sarcastic comment that often made this reader snicker out loud. The mysteries at work in the book-- past and present-- are complex and multilayered as are all the characters themselves. The protagonist as well as minor and major characters are multilayered and nuanced and every single one of them has stories to tell.

Land of Shadows by Rachel Howzell Hall is a very good read and one that is well worth your time. I was totally unaware of this book or the series until I recently read reviews by Jim Thomson and David Nemeth over on the Unlawful Acts website. All too often, we hear some folks claiming reviews don’t matter. Reviews of depth and meaning do matter and serve to help us all find books that appeal. Because of those reviews, I have a new series to work my way through and very much look forward to doing so book by book.

Land Of Shadows
Rachel Howzell Hall
http://www.rachelhowzell.com
Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
http://www.tor-forge.com
June 2014
ISBN# 978-0-7653-3635-4
Hardback (also available in paperback and digital formats)
320 Pages
$24.99

Material supplied by the good folks of the Dallas Public Library System.

Kevin R. Tipple © 2018 show less

Vivid, engaging read starring Elouise Norton, a quietly geeky black detective in Los Angeles, who juggles an oft-cheating husband, a pushy (and young, and white, and male) new partner, and her loving BFFs while solving a murder that might tie back to the disappearance of her older sister when they were teens. Some incidental anti-trans humor and disappointingly sensationalistic handling of mental illness marred my enjoyment; but it's hard not to love Lou, and I still picked up the sequel.