Murder DC (Sully Carter 2)

Travel Guide

Washington DC is  a city of two halves – on one side there is the power hungry, powerful and pristine political corridors of influence. On the other, the less fortunate and violent, depraved areas known as the projects. Slums, ravaged neighbourhoods where a sense of isolation and despair roams the street with a gun in its hand.

Billy Ellison is from a prominent African American family and found dead in the Potomac river. The city is split down two lines it seems – black and white although the issues and this investigation which brings them together are various shades of grey.

Sully Carter, a war reporter who has seen death and destruction on the streets of Bosnia and places like it, is now faced with a Washington many people don’t recognise. It’s a city of drugs, death and dirty politics. A drug deal gone bad or something more sinister? This area is known as a violent drug haven but Sully doesn’t want to assume that the colour of his skin or the area should define what has happened here. Urban crime, racial tension are ever present – hidden in plain sight.

Frenchman’s Bend , the murder area since some 45 murders ave taken place here is fictional but is described as an ugly park with “brown dirt and weeds too dumb to die and scraps of paper and brightly colored plastic bags, trash flitting across the scrub.” This place has a history of a site of an old slave market and holding bays for the slaves so a dark history indeed.

Veteran, war-scarred and alcohol fuelled reporter Sully Carter goes digging and the holes he digs are deep reaching within the city’s higher echelons and privileged social circles. The victims family are part of that select circle who the city seems to favour, and the city is seen through their eyes and via the victim through Carter’s eyes. And it’s quite a view.

Behind the shining facade of the Washington power elite, there are some dark forces at work