If I Should Die (Mali Anderson Mystery)

Mali Anderson used to be a cop, until she punched out a fellow officer for sexual slurs; now she's working toward a Ph.D. in social work, raising her orphaned nephew, and living with her jazz musician father on a street in Harlem nicknamed Strivers Row because of the black professionals who owned property there. She has a full, rich life--especially when you add a budding romance with a former colleague. But Mali puts it all at risk when she interrupts a kidnapping and finds a dead body outside the Uptown Children's Chorus building. The crimes are connected to both sides of Harlem: the aspirations of citizens like Mali and her father, and the more notorious elements of crack and police corruption. What links both sides is family, and in her first mystery, Edwards expertly creates characters who leap to instant, long-remembered life.