Derek and Isiah – the first is a pastry chef and white while the other is a journalist and black – live a love story so deep that they decide to have a little girl of their own and to get married… The problem, c t is that we are in Virginia, where outlaw bikers, the far right, and the false claims of some politicians are part of everyday life. And now we soon discover the bodies riddled with bullets of the two men in the city center.
The investigation quickly stalled, the police facing a wall of silence: no clues, no leads, it’s a dead end. Hate crime seems to have to go unpunished… Rideau.
But not really. This is because the improbable couple also had to deal with two unpredictable fathers who, even if they did not accept the “difference” of their sons, cannot bring themselves to give up; both are eager to make the culprit pay for the gaping wound that their lives have become.
Ike Randolph and Buddy Lee Jenkins don’t know each other, though: Isiah Randolph’s father runs a successful gardening business, while Jenkins is, shall we say, very bottle-bound and plummets solo in his mobile home filthy. Both former convicts, they have never spoken to each other and only meet when Buddy Lee, exasperated, offers Ike to “take over the case” since the cops can’t do it. Everything rushes from there.
Double revelation
The least that can be said of the two men is that they seem at first glance totally incompatible: Jenkins is an unrepentant racist and Randolph, a violent mountain of contradictions. In fact, they only come together through the guilt of having badly loved their sons, whom they nevertheless adored, and through the misfortune into which they have been plunged since the savage murder.
Unsurprisingly, Ike and Buddy Lee will prove to be much more efficient and convincing than the police officers. They will quickly find a first lead by visiting their son’s house: a gang of ruthless bikers. From there, they will make connections to the hard drug trade and the involvement of a politician; after a few ultimatums leading to scenes of incredible violence, the case will finally appear in all its complexity.
Yet it is a completely different discovery that makes the strength of this implacable book; that of these two remarkable characters who, in retrospect, come to accept the militant homosexuality of their two sons. With difficulty, of course, but completely. All this is delivered to us in a very high level writing, brilliantly rendered by the translation, which testifies to a deep knowledge of the faults of America.
A ruthless intrigue from an author who is a hit in France as well as in the United States. One of musts of summer.