This is a totally fascinating novel about a Black woman, a first-year professor at a prestigious but fictional university that sounds like an Ivy, or near Ivy. Daphne Ouverture is the daughter of a Haitian man and a woman from the Ivory Coast. Immigrant mothers are often depicted as serious taskmasters, with their daughters as their most important project, and that is the case here. Daphne is an expert on the lives of 18th- and 19th-century Black women in France and its empire. Her focus is both their treatment and their depiction in art and literature. When an aspiring, hero-in-the-making professor is murdered while texting her in French, she is inadvertently caught up in a whirlwind. As a historian seeking out the truth, Daphne begins to look into the matter, and she herself is attacked twice by someone searching for it. She devotes more and more thought to sleuthing and ultimately figures it out just as two bad guys are arrested while trying to recover whatever they think she has. They, along with the man who hired them, are arrested. Daphne suspects there is more to the story, however, because the decedent was engaged to a stunning, wealthy local woman while still having affairs with undergraduates, raping the unwilling, and stalking Daphne. Daphne’s assorted skills can strain credulity at times, but they do lead her to solutions.
Of course, this is a fun read with a solid storyline. The most intriguing aspects are the author’s insights into being a highly educated Black woman in a white world, her empathy for the young and abused, and her witty takedown of some of academia’s excesses.
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