Product Description

Eager to build a career in law enforcement, Korean War Veteran Q. P. Waldeau assumes the duties of Acting Sheriff in the small coastal community of Wilmington, North Carolina.After the brutalized body of a black prostitute washes up along the Cape Fear-in the hung-over early hours of New Year's Day 1954-he must confront a professional and political dilemma with the potential to derail his ambitions. The first suspect must be released for lack of evidence, and Waldeau vows to pursue the case despite the willful indifference shared by his colleagues on the police force and Wilmington's white Democratic establishment. Even the local elite cannot ignore the murderer when a white woman joins the growing list of victims. As the simmering prejudices and conflicting agendas aroused by the killings threaten to demolish the Old South's fragile racial hierarchy, Q.P. must negotiate a dangerous course between his political instincts, his professional discipline, and his moral duty. When those same tensions explode in outright violence, Waldeau finds not only his career, but also his life-and the life of the woman he loves-in peril. Set amidst the darkness that heralded the dawn of the New South, The Woman in the Yard captures the atmosphere, the passion, and the paranoia that charged an era and changed a generation.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2471518 in Books
• Published on: 2000-08-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Strong writing and a relatively fresh setting (the North Carolina coastal town of Wilmington in 1954) overcome some familiar plot elements in this debut mystery. Q.P. Waldeau, known as Kewpie, is a Korean War vet looking for a job in law enforcement. Turned down by big city police departments, he accepts the post of acting sheriff of New Hanover County, where race relations remain strained despite recent advances. When a young black prostitute, Cora Snow, turns up on the local beach trussed and savagely murdered, Kewpie is the only person in the white community who seems to care. It takes the similar killing of another black woman, then of a white woman, before the crimes get major attention. By then, Kewpie and Nina Mendelson, a liberal librarian who left Wilmington in disgust but has returned to look after her dying father, have begun to uncover an upper-class white male conspiracy (which alert readers will have spotted many pages earlier). Kewpie, reluctantly running for reelection (he'd rather work for the state's bureau of investigation), also has to worry about nightmares relating to his time in Korea, the pain of a recently failed relationship, and a threatening hurricane. A stylish writer who creates believable characters moving against a well-detailed, atmospheric background, Miller makes a welcome entrance to the field. Agent, Helen Heller.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
For more than a century, New Hanover County, NC, has maintained a well-defined race-based caste system. When two black women are brutally murdered in 1954, their deaths are barely noted outside the black community except by Nina Mendelson, a young Jewish activist, and Acting Sheriff Q.P. Waldeau, who is running for sheriff in the Democratic primaries and recognizes the case as an opportunity to prove himself. Not until a white woman is murdered and a sex scandal is uncovered does the complexion of the case change. Factor in the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, the activities of the local Ku Klux Klan, and a large dose of anti-Semitism, and tensions mount. First novelist Miller has painted a historically accurate and unflattering portrait of Southern culture at mid-century, touching on issues that some readers may find disquieting. Recommended for sophisticated readers.?Thomas L. Kilpatrick, Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
A Heat of the Nightish first novel, in which a string of murders upsets the already-fragile peace of a small southern town during the dawn of the Civil Rights era. Q.P. Waldreau is a southern boy whos seen enough of the world to want to settle down at home. After a stint in Korea with the Army, Q.P. decided that the best use for his experience as an MP would be in law enforcement, and he managed eventually to get himself appointed sheriff of New Hanover County, North Carolina. County sheriffs in the rural South of the 1950s rarely had a full docket on their hands, though, so it comes as some surprise to Q.P. that one of his first tasks turns out to be a homicide investigation: a black prostitute named Cora Snow has been found strangled. Q.P.s initial suspect is her pimp, Bill Scowen, but when Scowen is found lynched not long after Coras murder, the case starts to look more ominous. The Supreme Court has just handed down the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas ruling, declaring segregation unconstitutional, and the local Klansmen are speaking for much of the white populace when they denounce the nightmare of an integrated South. Q.P. himself is somewhat suspect in their eyes, insofar as his girlfriend Nina Mendelson is a northern- educated Jew known to be in favor of integration. Soon two more victimsone black, one whiteare found dead, and it becomes apparent that the killer is not about to knock off anytime soon. Small towns are known for their secrecy, and some secrets can be deadly. Can Q.P. gain enough trust from the suspicious whites and terrified blacks to break the case? Somewhat plodding in its setup, but the story moves well once it gets going, with a nice cast of characters and pretty authentic local color. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

Really good and out of the ordinary
Having served as an MP in the military during the Korean conflict, Q.P. Waldreau looks forward to a career in law enforcement. Even though he is only the acting sheriff of New Hanover County, North Carolina, Q. P. relishes the idea that his new civilian life starts at home on New Year's Day 1954.

However, if Q.P. thought he would ease on into the job, he soon found he was very much mistaken. Instead of the endless days of fishing, with little else to do but relax, Q.P. quickly finds himself investigating the murder of a Negro prostitute. The prime suspect is her pimp. Before Q.P. completes his inquiries, the pimp becomes a victim of a lynching. As two more corpses are found, local residents have doubts that Q.P. is capable of doing the job right. Not only is he inexperienced, he has a Jewish girl friend with integration leanings.

THE WOMAN IN THE YARD is an intriguing period piece police procedural that will gain much reader attention for author Stephen E. Miller. Taking place at the same time that the Supreme Court rules on the Brown vs. the Topkea Board of education case, the rural South is vividly brought to life as the cornerstone of the novel. Q.P. is a fine sheriff, who seeks the truth even though his own peers show disinterest. The secondary ensemble brings a wide variety of depth that propels the story line forward. In spite of this being his debut novel, Mr. Miller has raised the quality level of the historical rural southern police procedural with this entertaining novel.

Harriet Klausner