RaveThe Tampa Bay TimesThe captivating murder mystery and police procedural is precisely right for this time, when it would do good for many Americans to learn something about the complexity of race relations and policing in the post-World War II South ... Darktown tells the story of two of the first eight black police officers hired, due to political pressure, by the Atlanta Police Department in the sweltering heat of the summer of 1948 ... Mullen's work of historical fiction does what many nonfiction accounts perhaps can't, by getting deep inside the minds of both the black and white cops on the force and chewing away at the central conflicts: the bias and fear and hesitation to do what they know is right ... Mullen brings an insightful perspective to the book that goes beyond the rigid reconstruction that might be found in a nonfiction account ... While true to history and context, the book is a heck of a ride.
Mark Johnson & Kathleen Gallagher
PositiveThe Tampa Bay TimesWith weaker characters — or weaker journalists doing the telling — this book could have been a hodgepodge of science speak. The ideas are dense, the language foreign. But Johnson and Gallagher cut through the jargon and simplify the science. They thankfully make this a human story with gripping and sometimes blemished characters who all want the same thing: to save a child's life, no matter the physical and financial cost.
