Reviews with content warning for Torture - Dead Dead Girls

Book TW: sexual assault, attempted rape, racism, emotional abuse

Note: I received an eARC of this book to provide an honest review.

Dead, Dead Girls is the author’s debut novel and is the first book in a series of murder mysteries set in the Harlem Renaissance. While I enjoyed the book decently overall, and I adored the atmosphere that Afia created, there were some structural and style issues I had with it as well. The largest issue for me was a large overuse of foreshadowing that I felt undercut the mystery and tension of the book. It was largely foreshadowing using a future tense (I.e. she would regret doing this, this was the last time she would see ____ alive, etc). While I think occasionally using this literary device can actually increase tension, it was used so much that I figured out where the book was heading early on and then was just frustrated that Louise didn’t get there faster. I think without the extreme foreshadowing, my reading experience definitely would’ve been improved. Without getting into spoilers, I did also have a few problems with the twist and ending because it seemed somewhat inconsistent from the setup in my opinion and so I was expecting a further twist or reversal based on that... but then there wasn’t and I was just left a little like “well... alrighty then.”
I do generally like Louise as a character, and it’s kind of nice to have a character whose temper flaring is both helpful and harmful depending on when it appears.
Some of the side characters were a little flat, but I think they definitely have potential to be fleshed out in further installments as is common in mystery series. I think especially Rosa Marie could use with some development in future books. However, as this is both a debut and obviously a plot focused book, I’m not going to be nearly as harsh about flatter characters as I would be in an explicitly character focused novel. As I mentioned, the strongest aspect of the story was definitely the atmosphere and there were some genuinely heartwarming and tense moments as well. I think Nekesa Afia is definitely an author to watch as her writing and development grows over time. I may try this series again later, but I probably wouldn’t reread this specific book. If you want a fairly fast, straightforward murder mystery you may still enjoy yourself with this one.

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