March 2008 Reads

18. Bye, Bye Black Sheep - Ayelet Waldman - 259 pages - A good book but definately time to move on to another series, took me too long to read this one. So I'll put this series on the back burner for a while and read something else.

Juliet Appelbaum and her partner, Al Hockey, have nursed their detective agency into the black, but their latest case, which began when Heavenly, an African American transsexual, asked them to investigate her sister's death, just may put the firm back in the red. Heavenly's sister, Violetta, was a drug--addicted streetwalker who worked in one of Los Angeles' worst neighborhoods. The police did little to solve her murder. Juliet, still juggling the demands of motherhood and career, finds herself visiting Violetta's turf and trying to get information from the prostitutes and pimps plying their trade there. She manages to convince the cold-case squad to investigate and learns that the situation is complicated by family dynamics. As always, Waldman manages to depict the life of L.A.'s yuppie parents with humor while showing genuine compassion for the less-fortunate inhabitants of the city.