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Detective Elouise “Lou” Norton’s life is Los Angeles, for better or worse. It’s where she grew up and now solves crimes for the L.A.P.D., and where her marriage to Greg, a serial cheater, is crumbling. It’s also where her sister, Tori, went missing and, Lou believes, was murdered 30 years ago. When Monique Darson, a Black 17-year-old, is found dead at a condominium construction site on L.A.’s border, Lou’s job takes a personal turn: the man who owns the site is the same person she has long suspected (but can’t prove) killed her sister. As other coincidences and similarities in the case pile up, Lou is forced to reckon with a past she has long tried to outrun. Rachel Howzell Hall’s first installment in the Elouise Norton series, published in 2014, introduces a tough and witty detective—the perfect narrator to take readers through her bittersweet world, seeking justice wherever she can find it. —Mahita Gajanan

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