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2000s: Kensington Ave, Philadelphia: First place to look for drugs and sex, last place you hope to find your sister
2000s: Kensington Ave, Philadelphia: First place to look for drugs and sex, last place you hope to find your sister
Mickey Fitzpatrick has been patrolling the 24th District for years. She knows most of the working women by name. She knows what desperation looks like and what people will do when they need a fix. She’s become used to finding overdose victims: their numbers are growing every year. But every time she sees someone sprawled out, slumped over, cold to the touch, she has to pray it’s not her sister, Kacey.
When the bodies of murdered sex workers start turning up on the Ave, the Chief of Police is keen to bury the news. They’re not the kind of victims that generate a whole lot of press anyway. But Mickey is obsessed, dangerously so, with finding the perpetrator – before Kacey becomes the next victim.
This is a unique novel in that it is based or at least inspired by true facts and a part of a city representative of so many (sadly)
The opioid crisis in America is huge and large sections of society suffer from its effects, whether directly or indirectly. The opioid crisis in Philadelphia’s Kensington section is the setting of this police procedural which looks at the wider issues of the drug epidemic and the families who suffer as well as the victims.
In the book, the Kensington area of town is riddled with drugs and prostitutes. This is the place where you go for all kinds of illegal highs, but as the blurb says, you would not want to go there otherwise, and certainly not to look for your missing sister.
The sense of place is sharp and raw. Visceral even. The empty streets, the derelict housing, the homeless….and the constant search for the next fix.
Dark and raw.
Read the BookTrail’s full bookreview here of Long Bright River
Destination: Philadelphia Author/guide: Liz Moore Departure Time: 2000s
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