Trouble in Queenstown: A Mystery

by Delia Pitts Narrated by Bahni Turpin

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

We're fascinated by small towns with huge secrets. When a former cop starts accepting PI jobs for cash, she uncovers way more than she bargained for.

With Trouble in Queenstown, Delia Pitts introduces private investigator Vandy Myrick in a powerful mystery that blends grief, class, race, and family with thrilling results.

"Turpin masterfully distinguishes among characters of different genders, ages, and ethnic backgrounds, ensuring that each voice is distinct and authentic."-AudioFile

Evander “Vandy” Myrick became a cop to fulfill her father's expectations. After her world cratered, she became a private eye to satisfy her own. Now she's back in Queenstown, New Jersey, her childhood home, in search of solace and recovery. It's a small community of nine thousand souls crammed into twelve square miles, fenced by cornfields, warehouses, pharma labs, and tract housing. As a Black woman, privacy is hard to come by in "Q-Town," and worth guarding.

For Vandy, that means working plenty of divorce cases. They're nasty, lucrative, and fun in an unwholesome way. To keep the cash flowing and expand her local contacts, Vandy agrees to take on a new client, the mayor's nephew, Leo Hannah. Leo wants Vandy to tail his wife to uncover evidence for a divorce suit.

At first the surveillance job seems routine, but Vandy soon realizes there's trouble beneath the bland surface of the case when a racially charged murder with connections to the Hannah family rocks Q-Town. Fingers point. Clients appear. Opposition to the inquiry hardens. And Vandy's sight lines begin to blur as her determination to uncover the truth deepens. She's a minor league PI with few friends and no resources. Logic pegs her chances of solving the case between slim and hell no. But logic isn't her strong suit. Vandy won't back off.

A Macmillan Audio production from Minotaur Books.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Trouble in Queenstown starts at a simmer, but when Vandy’s investigation gets going, it reaches a full boil.” –The New York Times Book Review

“[Vandy Myrick] is a perfect fit for her new career as a private eye.” –The Washington Post

“The story flies. Pitts’s prose strikes a sophisticated balance between elegance and energy, with a description of Queenstown as a blend of “American Revolutionary severity and antebellum frippery” coming only pages after a cracking bar brawl.” –Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“[A] promising start of a series.” –Shelf Awareness

“Danger, thrills, and intrigue meld in this tale.” –Woman’s World

“Readers will fall in love with [Vandy Myrick] . . . I can't wait to read the next one!” –WYSO Radio

"A standout series launch . . . With an indelible lead and a richly rendered setting, Pitts sets this series up for success. Readers will be eager for the next installment." –Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A darkly atmospheric debut whose heroine just might want to reconsider her decision not to carry a gun next time." –Kirkus Reviews

"Vandy is a realistic, tough woman who refuses to quit, and her inner thoughts are fun to read. Although this is a mystery novel, it also deals with grief, race, classism, and family." –Booklist

“Intriguing.” –Library Journal

“Delia Pitts’s best work to date. . . a novel of dualities—on one hand, it feels like a lighter traditional mystery series, but buried in its depths is a pattern of social inequity that is anything but a laughing matter. This tonal divergence is challenging to handle, but Delia Pitts makes it look easy." –BOLO Books

“Offers everything that fans of detective fiction are looking for. . . Pitts has written a strong narrative that ricochets from Vandy’s tragic past to her gutsy present, keeping readers totally engaged to the very last page…and eager for more.” –First Clue

"Awesome." –CrimeReads

“A compelling mystery, full of sizzle and heart." —Steph Cha

“Delia Pitts’s writing is explosive, addictive, and downright beautiful, and her PI, Evander ‘Vandy’ Myrick, is perfection: fierce, sexy, self-aware, and as smart as a slap. Get this book now.” –Jess Lourey

"Vandy Myrick is officially my new favorite PI. A character-driven, furiously entertaining mystery from the first page to the last. A fantastic start to a sizzling new series." –Jennifer Hillier

“Practically leaps off the page to grab you by the throat. What a masterful writer. What a ride, what a PI, what a book. Welcome to Queenstown, folks. More, please!” —Tracy Clark

“Starts off with a bang and draws you in more and more with each passing chapter . . . I already can’t wait for Vandy’s next case.”—Kellye Garrett

“Evander ‘Vandy’ Myrick is the beating heart of this story–a bold, kick-ass private eye. I’m all in—I’d follow Vandy anywhere.” —Samantha Jayne Allen

Kirkus Reviews

2024-05-04
Pitts launches a new series with an apparently routine case for a Black New Jersey private eye that morphs into another case, and then another and another, as she struggles to keep up with its twists and turns.

Leo Hannah, deputy head of research at ArcDev Pharmaceuticals and the unofficial prince of Queenstown, wants Evander Myrick to follow his wife because he’s convinced she’s in danger. Except she isn’t; he really wants Vandy to follow Ivy Mae Hannah because he thinks she’s cheating on him. His worries are soon ended by an episode at his home that leaves Ivy dead along with Hector Ramírez, the intruder who Leo says was beating her to death when Leo shot him. None of this smells right to Vandy, and the fact that Leo’s aunt, Josephine Hannah, has been the mayor of Queenstown forever just makes it smell worse. So she’s fine to take on a new client—Ivy’s father, Professor Samuel Decker—who hires her to prove that Leo killed his daughter, and still another client, Hector’s sister, 16-year-old Ingrid Ramírez, who hires her to clear her brother’s name. Unsurprisingly, there turns out to be trouble aplenty in Queenstown, and it reaches deep into the mayor’s office. The surprise is how closely it’s connected to Vandy’s own family, especially to her father and namesake, a former cop who’s now in a nursing home where you’d think he’d be entitled to a much quieter life than his author has planned for him.

A darkly atmospheric debut whose heroine just might want to reconsider her decision not to carry a gun next time.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940159499691
Publisher:	Macmillan Audio
Publication date:	07/16/2024
Series:	The Vandy Myrick Mysteries , #1
Edition description:	Unabridged

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