★ 10/01/2021
Clark's (The Furious Way) new mystery is inspired by his time in the Los Angeles Police Department. He depicts an LAPD that's rife with racism, fear, lies, and corruption. Protagonist Trevor Finnegan was familiar with LAPD culture when he entered the police academy, having heard the experiences of his father, a Black LAPD officer. As a rookie cop in 2010, Trevor witnessed two senior officers brutally beating a young Black man, then was removed from the scene. He was naive enough to lie about the incident in order to move up the ranks, with hopes of changing the department's culture. Four years later, Trevor (now a detective) is handed a no-win case. The nude corpse of Brandon Soledad, a young Black LAPD recruit, has been found on a hiking trail in the Angeles National Forest. It's not in LA's jurisdiction, but Trevor is assigned to investigate because Brandon was in their academy, and LAPD fears a PR crisis. The young detective knows it's a lie when he's told the case is a career-maker. Upon discovering Brandon's connection to the 2010 beating, Trevor is forced to confront the truth and question his own complicity in LAPD's abuses. How far can one man be pushed? VERDICT Clark's ripped-from-the-headlines police procedural should make readers uncomfortable. It's a frightening, tragic tale.—Lesa Holstine, Evansville Vanderburgh P.L., IN
2021-06-29
The bill comes shockingly due for the serious moral compromises a rookie LAPD detective made to get his plum assignment.
Detective Trevor Finnegan is called to an Altadena hiking trail where the body of police recruit Brandon Soledad has been discovered. Like Finn, Brandon was one of the few Black candidates to be accepted into the police academy; now his death has ended his career before it’s even begun. Finn decides on the spot that the young man was killed elsewhere and dumped in the wild. The autopsy that confirms his judgment indicates that Brandon was frozen to death. Before Finn can even begin to make a list of likely suspects, he’s warned off the case by anonymous threats that almost certainly come from within his own department. Eyed with suspicion by colleagues certain that the fix was in when Finn was elevated to Robbery-Homicide and even by his old school friend Sarada Rao, whose rapist Finn beat within an inch of his life because he felt responsible for leaving her in an unsafe position, Finn is forced to work the case alone. His hard-nosed confrontations with his former training officer, Joey Garcia, and the visibly activist role his father, retired LAPD Sgt. Shaun Finnegan, has taken against the police make every cop Finn meets brush him off or worse, and his rage and guilt don’t bode well for his affair with dress designer Tori Krause. The corruption in the force is so widespread, and the hero so deeply flawed, that it’s something of a miracle when Clark finally manages to ring down the curtain.
Harrowing evidence for Spike Lee’s famous claim that everything that happens in America is about race.
Harrowing evidence for Spike Lee’s famous claim that everything that happens in America is about race.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Clark’s ripped-from-the-headlines police procedural should make readers uncomfortable. It’s a frightening, tragic tale.” —Library Journal (starred review)
“This is a smart, suspenseful police procedural with a timely plot.” —Publishers Weekly
“An absolutely riveting book that belongs in the pantheon of L.A. crime novels alongside Connelly’s The Black Echo, Mosley’s Devil in a Blue Dress, and Ellroy’s The Black Dahlia. Under Color of Law is a landmine placed at the intersection of law enforcement, race, media, and politics by an author who clearly knows the volatile territory. I cannot wait to read the next Trevor Finnegan book.” —Jason Pinter, bestselling author of Hide Away
“Aaron Philip Clark’s Under Color of Law is extraordinary. It’s a police procedural with a conscience, as invested in examining how and why American law enforcement so often fails to uphold its mandate to protect and serve all people equally as it is in telling a compelling story. You’ll read on for the mystery at its core, but you’ll remember Under Color of Law long after the read for the things it will teach you about the challenges of being a good cop of color in the age of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.” —Gar Anthony Haywood, Shamus and Anthony Award–winning author of In Things Unseen
“Aaron Phillip Clark’s Under Color of Law is a dizzying, breathtaking ride through the City of Angels, offering an unflinching and compelling look at the complexities of being a Black man wearing a detective’s badge. An awesome L.A. story and a helluva page-turner!” —Rachel Howzell Hall, author of the Los Angeles Book Prize–nominated And Now She’s Gone
“Not since Joseph Wambaugh’s New Centurions has a book about the LAPD arrived with the power, strength, and timeliness of Under Color of Law. This is a thriller, all right, but it’s also the portrait of a city and its institutions crumbling from within. A dynamic and important work and, still, a hell of a mystery.” —Tod Goldberg, New York Times bestselling author of Gangsterland
“Rugged, real, and timely, the authenticity crackles on each page in this unputdownable novel from Mr. Clark.” —Gary Phillips, author of Matthew Henson and the Ice Temple of Harlem
“Under Color of Law does what great crime fiction should: it kept me turning pages while I was reading it and kept me thinking about it when I wasn’t. Clark establishes himself as heir apparent to Michael Connelly in L.A. police novels.” —Eric Beetner, author of All The Way Down
