Lightning Men
Published on 12. September 2017
384 pages
978-0-349-14309-5 (ISBN)
Description
'A brilliant blending of crime, mystery, and American history. Terrific entertainment'
Stephen King on Darktown
Lightning Men follows the multi-award-nominated, highly acclaimed crime debut Darktown into a city on the brink of huge and violent change - and full of secrets.
Atlanta, 1950. Crime divides, the fight unites.
Officer Denny Rakestraw and 'Negro Officers' Lucius Boggs and Tommy Smith face the Klan, gangs and family warfare in a rapidly changing Atlanta.
Black families - including Smith's sister and brother-in-law - are moving into Rake's formerly all-white neighbourhood, leading his brother-in-law, a proud Klansman, to launch a scheme to 'save' their streets. When those efforts leave a man dead, Rake is forced to choose between loyalty to family or the law.
Meanwhile, Boggs has outraged his preacher father by courting a domestic, whose dangerous ex-boyfriend is then released from prison. As Boggs, Smith, and their all-black precinct contend with violent drug dealers fighting for turf in new territory, their personal dramas draw them closer to the fires that threaten to consume Atlanta once again.
Praise for Thomas Mullen
'Magnificent and shocking'
Sunday Times
'Written with a ferocious passion that'll knock the wind out of you'
New York Times
Stephen King on Darktown
Lightning Men follows the multi-award-nominated, highly acclaimed crime debut Darktown into a city on the brink of huge and violent change - and full of secrets.
Atlanta, 1950. Crime divides, the fight unites.
Officer Denny Rakestraw and 'Negro Officers' Lucius Boggs and Tommy Smith face the Klan, gangs and family warfare in a rapidly changing Atlanta.
Black families - including Smith's sister and brother-in-law - are moving into Rake's formerly all-white neighbourhood, leading his brother-in-law, a proud Klansman, to launch a scheme to 'save' their streets. When those efforts leave a man dead, Rake is forced to choose between loyalty to family or the law.
Meanwhile, Boggs has outraged his preacher father by courting a domestic, whose dangerous ex-boyfriend is then released from prison. As Boggs, Smith, and their all-black precinct contend with violent drug dealers fighting for turf in new territory, their personal dramas draw them closer to the fires that threaten to consume Atlanta once again.
Praise for Thomas Mullen
'Magnificent and shocking'
Sunday Times
'Written with a ferocious passion that'll knock the wind out of you'
New York Times
Reviews / Votes
Black vs. White doesn't begin to cover the complexity of the diverse relationships in this sharply observed novel * New York Times * Violent, compassionate and brilliant. * Sunday Times (Crime Club) * Today's finest exemplar of the white-writer-black-cop tradition. Few other crime writers are as adept . . . social history made riveting * Sunday Times * Mullen again brilliantly combines a suspenseful plot with a searing look at a racist South * Publishers Weekly * Morally complex and boasting more finely drawn characters, this outstanding follow-up to Darktown deepens Mullen's portrait of pre-civil rights America and deserves a place on every suspense reader's list. * Library Journal * Behind an engaging story and challenging action for the protagonists, the friction between the races is ever at the forefront of the story, and the detail is at times jaw-dropping. * Crime Review *More details
Series
Edition
Digital original
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Edition type
Digital original
File size
0,90 MB
ISBN-13
978-0-349-14309-5 (9780349143095)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Thomas Mullen is the internationally bestselling author of seven previous novels, including Darktown, which was shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Lightning Men, was named one of the Top Ten Crime Novels of the Year by The New York Times; and Midnight Atlanta. The latter two were shortlisted for CWA Dagger Awards. His debut, The Last Town on Earth, was awarded the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for excellence in historical fiction. He lives in Atlanta.
