• Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2023 January #1
  Winslow returns to the small, segregated North Carolina town of his 1940s-set debut, In West Mills (2019). Returning to West Mills in the 1970s after 40 years away, Jo finds that her fiancé, Lymp, is the prime suspect in the murder of his three half-siblings, Marva, Lazarus, and Marian, the first Black doctor in West Mills. Discovering several town secrets as she investigates, Jo finds other potential suspects, even as the sheriff declares the murder a drug deal gone wrong. Eunice had a very public dispute with Marian after taking her son, La'Roy, to the doctor to have the gay removed. Savannah, whose sons were involved in Marian's plan for La'Roy, had a pill addiction, aided by her friend Marva. Or maybe it was Savannah's father, wrapped up in a bitter fight with the siblings over real estate. Winslow offers several points of view in this character-driven mystery, once again pulling readers in with conversational, highly readable writing while deftly weaving in themes of race, sexuality, and small-town dynamics. Another winner. Copyright 2023 Booklist Reviews.

De'Shawn Charles Winslow is the author of In West Mills, a Center for Fiction First Novel Prize winner, an American Book Award recipient, and a Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction winner, and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book, Lambda Literary, and Publishing Triangle awards. He was born and raised in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, and graduated from the Iowa Writers' Workshop.