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Informationen zum Autor Valerie Wilson Wesley is the Blackboard bestselling author of six Tamara Hayle mysteries. Her recent novels include Always True to You in My Fashion and the novel Ain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do , for which she received the 2000 award for excellence in adult fiction from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. A former executive editor at Essence magazine, she lives in New Jersey. Visit the author’s Web site at www.tamarahayle.com Klappentext Valerie Wilson Wesley's Tamara Hayle mystery series featuring Newark, New Jersey's number one private investigator are loved for their smart, sexy protagonist who "has a way with a wisecrack that is positively lethal” (Washington Post). Now in Dying in the Dark, Hayle is entrenched in a sinister investigation that will demand her best detective work yet. Tamara Hayle's past has come back to haunt her-literally. She's been plagued by terrifying dreams about Celia Jones, an old friend whose walk on the wild side led her to a horrible death. Celia's teenage son, Cecil, begs Tamara to find his mother's killer . . . only to end up dead himself, stabbed through the heart. The search for Celia and her son's killer pulls Tamara deep into her friend's troubled love life, where everyone adored her but somebody held a murderous grudge. There's her bullying thug of an ex-husband; a handsome ex-lover who woos Tamara with charm and lies; and an angry, jealous woman who claims that Celia broke her heart. And those were just the obvious people with axes to grind. Despite her better judgment and the admonitions of the police department, Tamara refuses to back away from the mystery surrounding her old friend's death and the tragedy that met her son. All clues lead to the past Tamara shared with Celia Jones, and Tamara fears that that past will threaten her own son. But she uncovers more than she bargained for-and unearths secrets someone would kill to keep in the shadows.CHAPTER ONE “Don’t never talk to haints,” my grandma used to tell me. “Haints” are what the old folks call ghosts, and when she’d say it, my daddy would roll his eyes and shake his head. But I knew what she was talking about. “If one comes knocking at your door, you just turn your head, look in the other direction, and never listen to what it has to say.” My grandmother has been dead since I was a kid, but her words still rang true even though Celia Jones wasn’t an ordinary “haint.” She wore green eye shadow, too much rouge, and enough Tabu cologne to make a preacher forget his calling, and the door she knocked on wasn’t the kind you walked through. She started showing up in my dreams about a month after she’d been murdered. For three nights straight. Celia was the closest thing I had to a sister after Pet, my real one, pulled up stakes and split. The two of us would run the streets like wild things: sneaking out, bumming cigarettes and joints, sharing everything from drawers to dudes. We talked smart to men we had no business knowing and hung out places we had no business going. But I had my brother Johnny, may his soul rest in peace, to cool my heels and keep me out of trouble. He was always there when I needed him, even before he became a cop. After that, he’d warn any hardheaded Negro who looked my way to keep his eyes—and hands—off his baby sister. Celia wasn’t so lucky. Her mama was dead, her papa didn’t give a damn, and her brothers and sisters were so glad to get out their daddy’s house, they steered clear of anything or anybody who reminded them where they came from. Celia was on her own, kicking ass and taking names all by herself. I loved her like she was kin because she was strong, smart, and knew her way around. Over the years, I hadn’t thought too much about her until I saw the headline in the Star-Ledger: “Woman Shot, Killer Unknown.” It was the kind of story that caught my...
