Blanche passes go

Blanche White, an African-American maid-cum-sleuth, returns for a fourth outing (following Blanche Cleans Up) that takes her back home to Farleigh, N.C., from Boston. It's a trip freighted with racial bitterness and gender rage as 50-year-old Blanche faces up to old truths about the new South and confronts the rapist, David Palmer, who drove her from Farleigh eight years before. Agatha Award-winner Neely is at her best when Blanche seeks to define or redefine relationships with the people she cares most about: her aged mother, Cora; her best friend, Ardell; and the wonderful railroad porter, Thelvin, whom she meets on the train to Farleigh. The author also movingly describes Blanche's efforts to overcome her fear and hatred of the man who raped her. After Blanche is hired to get the dirt on David's sister, Karen, she sees an opportunity to get the goods on David as well. When it appears that David may be involved in the recent murder of a young white girl, Blanche is determined that he won't go unpunished this time, and Blanche's quest, both for vengeance and to reclaim her life, drives a compelling plot. Neely is a fine phrase-maker, and her black characters are vibrantly alive. Unfortunately, with the exception of an adult male with Down's syndrome, the white characters here are all stereotypically venal, racist, stupid and mean. Such reverse discrimination mars an otherwise admirable tale. 6-city author tour. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

When Blanche White (Blanche on the Lam)"big, middle-aged, and black"returns to her North Carolina hometown to join her best friend!s catering business, an old pain confronts her. Facing the rich white man who raped her and got away with it incapacitates her until she decides upon a suitable revenge. Asked to investigate the man!s sister, she investigates him as well, hoping to connect him to other rapes"or perhaps to the recent murder of a young black woman. This lively, energetic, and sexy narrative showcases a unique, ancestor-worshiping protagonist, wonderful plotting, and a South haunted by racism. Strongly urged. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Fed up with housecleaning and her employers' genteel condescension in Boston (Blanche Cleans Up, 1998, etc.), Blanche White takes her attitude and hard-won independence back home to Farleigh, North Carolina, where she joins her best buddy Ardell in her catering business, tentatively enters a relationship with Thelvin, a widowed train conductor, and tries to come to terms with David Palmer, the man who raped her years ago, though she had been too terrified to report it. She's barely unpacked this excess baggage when an abused woman dies, perhaps at Palmer's hands, and his racist, money-grubbing sister gets engaged to the rich but mentally retarded Mumsfield, whose kin want Blanche to dig up dirt that will unring the threatened wedding bells. Praying to her ancestors that the Palmers are guilty of every misdeed committed in Farleigh, Blanche is so avid for success that she misinterprets clues, leading to more deaths, including Palmer's on a sharply curved road. Even after his gratifying departure, ingrained southern racism, persistent sexism, and a long-overdue mother-daughter confrontation almost get the better of her before this sad tale of female suffering comes to an end. A trenchantly written feminist manifesto for women of color, women who've survived abuse, and men who don't mind having their hackles raised. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.