Dead Dead Girls - BookWyrm

Paperback, 336 pages

Published June 1, 2021 by Berkley.

ISBN:: 978-0-593-19910-7

(2 reviews)

Harlem, 1926. Young Black women like Louise Lloyd are ending up dead.

Following a harrowing kidnapping ordeal when she was in her teens, Louise is doing everything she can to maintain a normal life. She’s succeeding, too. She spends her days working at Maggie’s Café and her nights at the Zodiac, Harlem’s hottest speakeasy. Louise’s friends, especially her girlfriend, Rosa Maria Moreno, might say she’s running from her past and the notoriety that still stalks her, but don’t tell her that.

When a girl turns up dead in front of the café, Louise is forced to confront something she’s been trying to ignore—two other local Black girls have been murdered in the past few weeks. After an altercation with a police officer gets her arrested, Louise is given an ultimatum: She can either help solve the case or wind up in a jail cell. Louise has no choice but to …

Harlem, 1926. Young Black women like Louise Lloyd are ending up dead.

Following a harrowing kidnapping ordeal when she was in her teens, Louise is doing everything she can to maintain a normal life. She’s succeeding, too. She spends her days working at Maggie’s Café and her nights at the Zodiac, Harlem’s hottest speakeasy. Louise’s friends, especially her girlfriend, Rosa Maria Moreno, might say she’s running from her past and the notoriety that still stalks her, but don’t tell her that.

When a girl turns up dead in front of the café, Louise is forced to confront something she’s been trying to ignore—two other local Black girls have been murdered in the past few weeks. After an altercation with a police officer gets her arrested, Louise is given an ultimatum: She can either help solve the case or wind up in a jail cell. Louise has no choice but to investigate and soon finds herself toe-to-toe with a murderous mastermind hell-bent on taking more lives, maybe even her own....

3 editions

The Reading Seamstress reviewed Dead Dead Girls by Nekesa Afia

Has potential.

3 stars

The story was engaging enough to keep me reading, and I finished the book pretty fast. However, the characters imho would have needed more development and depth, the plot and characters' decisions sometimes didn't make sense at all, and the ending felt kinda abrupt and rushed. The writing style was at times confusing and repetitive. In the end I was left with so many questions concerning the murders, the whys and hows. On the plus side, we get queer Black characters and a glimpse into 1920s Harlem. I will certainly read the next book in the series because I want to know how it all further develops - the story as well as the writing.

jellybeyreads reviewed Dead Dead Girls by Nekesa Afia

Review of 'Dead Dead Girls' on 'Goodreads'

No rating

Did not finish at about 33%.

Gorgeous cover. I really wanted to like this. Clumsy foreshadowing, oddly short and repetitive sentence structure, characters without personality that also fail as tropes/archetypes. Our heroine pulls herself up to her full height of five feet two inches about 25 too many times even in the section I finished. Louise is hard-drinking and hard-dancing--is this supposed to be a noir with Louise as the hard-boiled investigator? It seems like maybe it's supposed to be, but it missed the mark. Library loan expired and I won't bother to renew.

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