I wanted to like Dead Dead Girls, I really did.
I mean, combine one of my favorite time periods, the Harlem Renaissance, with one of my favorite literary genres, the cozy mystery, and that should total up to be a winner, right? Well, in this case, I’m sorry to say, nope, the house came up short.
The prologue reeled me in. Harlem, 1916. Nekesa Afia introduces us to a world so visceral that you could feel the biting cold wind blowing through the protagonist’s thin coat as her struggle to make it home is derailed, plunging her into the fight of her life. If only the tenor of the story remained as consistent throughout the rest book! Unfortunately, after her precarious escape, we are transported 10 years into the future wherein Louise struggles to forget the hero she was by throwing herself into parties and illegal booze.
So now it’s 1926 and there’s a serial killer on the loose in Harlem whose victims are young, Black girls. Somehow, Harlem’s Hero (Louise) is entangled in this mess and is roped into becoming the savior. I’m not mad at that. In fact, I think at the point when she inserted herself into police business, was arrested, and then summarily recruited to help the hapless department get information, I actually thought, maybe her story is that she becomes one of the first Black police officers, or at least a Black female private eye. That would have been cool. But the detective and officers that begrudgingly work with her, never actually teach her any skills. She bumbles around, in and out of danger, stumbling into clues, never quite figuring out what she knows or doesn’t know, and continues looking in the wrong places for answers. There is just no good reason she shouldn’t have been killed – other than for the sake of the story.
The foreshadowing stuff was definitely a vibe killer: “This would be the last time she ever saw… alive again.” “This would be the last time she ever stepped foot in …. again” Felt like a throwback to those old Woody Woodpecker cartoons, “If Woody would have just gone to the police, none of this would have ever happened.” Not to mention if this girl pulled herself up to her full 5’2″ frame one mo’ time… We get it, she’s short! And she’s got a temper that she could not control – which kept getting both her, and anyone in her blast radius – into all sorts of problems.
So question, why is the killer bringing this to her door? Well, that’s one of my biggest issues with this book. Spoiler alert: Who knows? We never actually find that out. We also don’t know why the clues were left on the girls’ bodies or what they meant. How do we know where they were killed and why they were killed there? Because Louise had a ‘vibe’ but somehow, she didn’t know how to trust her gut on anything else. And how did the person who gave her access to that location know what was going on there? We do know WHO the killer is about 3/4 of the way through the book though. And we find out why (more or less) that person is the “Girl Killer” (note: could this be any more boring of a serial killer name?) But it’s never made clear why the killer is obsessed with Louise.
All in all, I was very unsatisfied with the story. Could have used a few more editing passes to make the mystery part of it all more robust. There were just too many plot holes. Her world building was pretty good though. I don’t think I can continue with the series unless there has been a marked improvement in book #2.
Listened on Libby.
Dead Dead Girls, published in 2021 by Nekesha Afia on Berkley Prime Crime, a Random House Imprint.
