Memphis Ribs

By Gerald Duff

J.W. is a homicide detective in Memphis. It's May and tourist season is just starting when a tourist is murdered. The tourist had the bad luck to stumble upon a crime in commission. Then an upstanding citizen of Memphis is also killed in what looks like a robbery gone bad. At first, it would appear that the two crimes had nothing in common. The tourist was killed in the street and the citizen in his own home.
But the powers that be need both crimes solved and quickly. It looks bad for Memphis when tourists are murdered in the streets. And the dead citizen is the father of the soon-to-be-crowned Maid of Cotton at one of the premiere social events of the season, The International Barbecue Contest and the Cotton Carnival. It is up to J.W. and his partner Tyrone to figure out the connections between these two seemingly unrelated murders.

I enjoyed this book once I got into it. I must admit I found it not that engrossing at first but it did start to grow on me. It took me awhile to warm up to the main character, J.W., but once I did I really started to like him a lot. It was quite a good read.