One Way Ticket Downtown Book Club February 2023 Theme: Black History Month

"A thriller about a Black society with a secret"--

Investigating the murder of a client he initially refused to help, Leonid navigates difficult personal elements in his own life while uncovering dark secrets about the victim's old-money family and its missing heiress.

After serving time in Rikers Island solitary for assault, Joe King Oliver, who is an ex-NYPD investigator working as a private detective, receives a note from a woman who admits she was paid to frame him, compelling him to investigate.

Leonid McGill, a New York City private detective, tries to put his past life behind him. But it's not that easy when someone like Tony "The Suit" Towers expects you to do a job; when an Albany PI hires you to track down four men known only by their youthful street names; and when your 16-year-old son, Twill, is getting in over his head with a suicidal girl.

When a boxer-turned-revolutionary kidnaps the daughter of a weapons manufacturer and threatens to publicly execute her in exchange for a lucrative ransom, Easy Rawlins is tapped by the LAPD to make a difficult border crossing to navigate an ensuing standoff.

On the road in a "borrowed" '36 Ford, nineteen-year-old Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins and his companion, Raymond "Mouse" Alexander, are on a perilous odyssey that takes them from Houston to a mysterious bayou world of voodoo, sex, revenge, and death. Their destination is desolate Pariah, Texas - Mouse's home once, and still home to his hated stepfather. Encountering violent and unexpected threats, Easy and Mouse forge bonds that will link them in the decades...

Leonid McGill's spent a lifetime building up his reputation in the New York investigative scene. His seemingly infallible instinct and inside knowledge of the crime world make him the ideal man to help when Phillip Worry comes knocking. Catfish is a ninety-four-year-old Mississippi blues-man who needs Leonid's help with a simple task: Deliver a letter revealing the black lineage of a wealthy heiress and her corrupt father. The opportunity to do a...