Stormy Weather (Charlotte Justice #2)

Los Angeles is in the midst of rebuilding in the aftermath of the Rodney King riots when Detective Charlotte Justice of the LAPD's elite Robbery-Homicide division takes on a high-profile case. The victim is pioneering black film director Maynard Duncan, a show business contemporary of her father. Charlotte, fueled by a desire to see the job done right and out of respect for a great man's memory, plunges badge-deep into the murky relationships between the director, his family, caregivers, business associates, and an elusive young man who seems to hold the key to unlocking the crime. Even when storm clouds gather, Detective Justice won't give upputting her career, her personal relationships, even her own life on the line.

"Fast-paced....[A] charming but pointed police procedural." The Wall Street Journal

"Black Hollywood, from its early days to the present, with glitter and tarnish, prejudice and networking, and a heroine with guarded heart and smash-mouth nerve." Kirkus Reviews

"[A] savvy glimpse behind the celluloid curtain through the eyes of one very determined young woman." Publishers Weekly

"A first-rate mystery...terrific, engrossing....Woods is a smart, savvy writer who has delivered a definite page turner." Carolina Garcia-Aguilera, author of Havana Heat

A lifelong lover of books, first-time novelist Paula L. Woods is also the editor of the critically-acclaimed anthology Spooks, Spies, and Private Eyes: Black Mystery, Crime, and Suspense Fiction of the 20th Century, which was nominated for Anthony and Macavity Awards and received an award from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association.

With Felix H. Liddell, Paula Woods is the author/editor of the best-selling I, Too, Sing America: The African American Book of Days; Merry Christmas, Baby: A Christmas and Kwanzaa Treasury; and I Hear a Symphony: African Americans Celebrate Love, the last of which won Fiction Honors from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award for multicultural literature. Woods and Liddell are also the co-founders of Livre Noir, a book packaging and marketing firm.

Ms. Woods's writing has appeared in Essence, Emerge, and Mary Higgins Clark Mystery magazines as well as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Dallas Morning News, among other newspapers. She hosts a monthly radio segment, "The Book Doctor," which airs in Los Angeles on KPCC 89.3 FM's program "Ebony," and has served on the Author Committee of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books since its inception.

A native of Los Angeles, she lives with her husband, over a thousand books, and an eleven year-old boxer, Sampson, who serves as a model for Detective Justice's dog, Beast.