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Blanche White #4
Blanche Passes Go
The fourth, ground-breaking mystery featuring African-American maid and amateur sleuth Blanche White by Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity Award winning Author Barbara Neely
Blanche White returns to Farleigh, North Carolina for the summer to help her best friend with her catering business. It’s a homecoming rich with the potential for new romance and fraught with the pain of facing the man who raped her at knife-point years ago but was never prosecuted for the crime. Shortly after Blanche arrives, a young woman is murdered and the clues point to the rapist. Blanche investigates, determined not to let him get away with another crime… nor is she willing to let his money-hungry sister marry a sweet, mentally-challenged man for his wealth. With her usual persistence, feisty wit, and indomitable spirit, her quest for the truth reveals the racism and sexism that still permeate the new south, but also the conflicts that divide her own family…and that might prevent her from accepting the love she so richly deserves.
Blanche White returns to Farleigh, North Carolina for the summer to help her best friend with her catering business. It’s a homecoming rich with the potential for new romance and fraught with the pain of facing the man who raped her at knife-point years ago but was never prosecuted for the crime. Shortly after Blanche arrives, a young woman is murdered and the clues point to the rapist. Blanche investigates, determined not to let him get away with another crime… nor is she willing to let his money-hungry sister marry a sweet, mentally-challenged man for his wealth. With her usual persistence, feisty wit, and indomitable spirit, her quest for the truth reveals the racism and sexism that still permeate the new south, but also the conflicts that divide her own family…and that might prevent her from accepting the love she so richly deserves.
339 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 1, 2000
About the author
Barbara Neely
11 books287 followersBarbara Neely was a novelist, short story writer, and author of the popular Blanche White mystery novels. The first book in this series, BLANCHE ON THE LAM, won the Agatha, the Macavity, and the Anthony -- three of the four major mystery awards for best first novel -- as well as the Go On Girl! Book Club award for a debut novel. The subsequent books in the series, BLANCHE AMONG THE TALENTED TENTH, BLANCHE CLEANS UP and BLANCHE PASSES GO have also received critical acclaim from both fans and literary critics. Books in the Blanche White series have been taught in courses at universities as varied as Howard University, Northwestern, Bryn Mawr, Old Dominion, Boston College, Appalachian State University, Washington State University and Guttenberg University in Mainz, Germany. Books in the series have been translated into French, German and Japanese.
Neely’s short stories have appeared in anthologies, magazines, university texts, and journals including: Things that divide us, Speaking for Ourselves, Constellations, Literature: Reading and Writing the Human Experience, Breaking Ice, Essence, and Obsidian II.
Ms. Neely has also had an extensive public sector career. She designed and directed the first community-based corrections facility for women in Pennsylvania, directed a branch of the YWCA, and headed a consultant firm for non-profits. She was part of an evaluative research team at the Institute for Social Research, the Executive Director of Women for Economic Justice, and a radio producer for Africa News Service. For her activism Neely has received the Community Works Social Action Award for Leadership and Activism for Women's Rights and Economic Justice, and the Fighting for Women's Voices Award from the Coalition for Basic Human Needs.
Series:
* Blanche White
Neely’s short stories have appeared in anthologies, magazines, university texts, and journals including: Things that divide us, Speaking for Ourselves, Constellations, Literature: Reading and Writing the Human Experience, Breaking Ice, Essence, and Obsidian II.
Ms. Neely has also had an extensive public sector career. She designed and directed the first community-based corrections facility for women in Pennsylvania, directed a branch of the YWCA, and headed a consultant firm for non-profits. She was part of an evaluative research team at the Institute for Social Research, the Executive Director of Women for Economic Justice, and a radio producer for Africa News Service. For her activism Neely has received the Community Works Social Action Award for Leadership and Activism for Women's Rights and Economic Justice, and the Fighting for Women's Voices Award from the Coalition for Basic Human Needs.
Series:
* Blanche White
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 131 reviews
July 29, 2015
Neely writes genre fiction that is quite unlike any other out there: crime without the cops, mystery without a clue, and the romance of a strong, opinionated woman. It is beautiful and flawed and very real. Neely has an agenda, yes she does, but it’s revelatory to hear her concerns. She talks it all out on the page, so we get the picture from where she’s standing. She is fun but thoughtful; playful, but looks straight in the eye of some edgy situations. I mean, maybe you’ve thought about what to do when your neighbor is being beaten by her husband inside her house, loud enough for all the world to hear. Day after day. Well, Blanche comes up with a solution that worked pretty well and it didn’t involve a weapon of mass destruction or murder. Blanche constantly surprises us.
This mystery novel, #4 of the Blanche White series, brings Blanche down to North Carolina from Boston. Her sister’s son and daughter who are in her care, Malik and Taifa, are children no longer and are off for summer work in Vermont and Maine. Blanche is going to help her best friend, Ardell, with her catering business during the bicentennial celebrations in Farleigh, her hometown. Blanche had left behind in her hometown both a former lover, now married, and her rapist, so the pleasure of her homecoming was mitigated somewhat by what she might uncover hidden in her psyche. Besides, her Mom was as armored against intimacy as always, and never seemed to listen, even though she was getting older and needed more assistance than ever to keep everything in working order.
Nothing about this novel was ordinary. Almost every page expressed some real truth or revelation. Neely must have decided at some point she might be polite in company but she was going to write what she thought people ought to know. Thank god for it. Thank god for her. You don’t have to adhere to her beliefs, but by golly, she’s going to tell you what she thinks. She might even give some of us the words to articulate our own defense for a course of action we wanted to take but for one reason or another, felt unable. She makes a lot of sense. Blanche is an example to us.
As a mystery, the novel works very well. The denouement is guaranteed to blow you out of the water. As we begin, we imagine this novel might just be another opportunity to spend time with Blanche and hear her wisecracks on everything from real food to what men like. Nothing wrong with that! But Neely is too sophisticated and wise to just give us what we think we want: she’s gonna surprise us with something we can learn from, delighting us at the same time she is instructing us.
Blanche makes mistakes--really big, life-and-death mistakes--in this novel, all the while sounding like she has things pretty much under control. But we all have done that, haven’t we? Just as we think we’ve learned a few lessons and can dish it out, life and people surprise us. Neely makes us think. She teaches us how to think.
As the train from Boston to North Carolina makes it way south, Blanche slips into patios, anticipating her homecoming. It feels perfectly natural, though we know Blanche of Boston looking after teens is less lenient with herself. We want to relax, too, and hear the real Blanche fooling with Ardell, or romancing her new love interest, Thelvin.
The following quote is classic Neely:
The Blanche White series has four books. Each of them is special in its own way. Originally published in the 1990s by Penguin Books, they are now published in eBook format by Brash Books and can be bought wherever books are sold. Neely’s voice is extraordinary and outside the usual genre categorizations. The Blanche books are a little mystery, a little crime, a little romance, a little social commentary, and altogether unique.
This mystery novel, #4 of the Blanche White series, brings Blanche down to North Carolina from Boston. Her sister’s son and daughter who are in her care, Malik and Taifa, are children no longer and are off for summer work in Vermont and Maine. Blanche is going to help her best friend, Ardell, with her catering business during the bicentennial celebrations in Farleigh, her hometown. Blanche had left behind in her hometown both a former lover, now married, and her rapist, so the pleasure of her homecoming was mitigated somewhat by what she might uncover hidden in her psyche. Besides, her Mom was as armored against intimacy as always, and never seemed to listen, even though she was getting older and needed more assistance than ever to keep everything in working order.
Nothing about this novel was ordinary. Almost every page expressed some real truth or revelation. Neely must have decided at some point she might be polite in company but she was going to write what she thought people ought to know. Thank god for it. Thank god for her. You don’t have to adhere to her beliefs, but by golly, she’s going to tell you what she thinks. She might even give some of us the words to articulate our own defense for a course of action we wanted to take but for one reason or another, felt unable. She makes a lot of sense. Blanche is an example to us.
As a mystery, the novel works very well. The denouement is guaranteed to blow you out of the water. As we begin, we imagine this novel might just be another opportunity to spend time with Blanche and hear her wisecracks on everything from real food to what men like. Nothing wrong with that! But Neely is too sophisticated and wise to just give us what we think we want: she’s gonna surprise us with something we can learn from, delighting us at the same time she is instructing us.
Blanche makes mistakes--really big, life-and-death mistakes--in this novel, all the while sounding like she has things pretty much under control. But we all have done that, haven’t we? Just as we think we’ve learned a few lessons and can dish it out, life and people surprise us. Neely makes us think. She teaches us how to think.
As the train from Boston to North Carolina makes it way south, Blanche slips into patios, anticipating her homecoming. It feels perfectly natural, though we know Blanche of Boston looking after teens is less lenient with herself. We want to relax, too, and hear the real Blanche fooling with Ardell, or romancing her new love interest, Thelvin.
The following quote is classic Neely:
”When the children were small and using up every moment when she wasn’t working for money, she’d soothed herself with a one-day-they’ll be grown fantasy. Now that they were practically grown, instead of trying to convince them to be careful of strangers, pick up their toys, and eat their okra. She was urging them to use condoms, to avoid hard drugs, and to become their very best selves. Different topics, more stressful topics. Who started that bullshit about parenting getting easier as the children got older? What parenting lost in intensity it picked up in worriation.Or this:
”[Blanche] made up her own spiritual practice, including reverence for her Ancestors and the planet, and seeking energy from trees and healing from the sea. Some things she’d learned from African, Afro-Caribbean, Native American, and Asian ways of having a spiritual life, but she always added her personal twist. Until she’d come up with her own rituals she’d been hungry for ways to demonstrate her belief that there was more to life than she could see—ways that didn’t require her being a member of the Christian or the Muslim or any other religion that had played a part in African slavery. She also had no time for any religions that said she needed a priest or priestess to act as a go-between or worshipped a god called He. She was her own priest and goddess.”
The Blanche White series has four books. Each of them is special in its own way. Originally published in the 1990s by Penguin Books, they are now published in eBook format by Brash Books and can be bought wherever books are sold. Neely’s voice is extraordinary and outside the usual genre categorizations. The Blanche books are a little mystery, a little crime, a little romance, a little social commentary, and altogether unique.
September 12, 2015
Rereading Blanche Passes Go proved incredibly bittersweet. While I absolutely adored this fourth novel in the Blanche White mystery series, I was heartbroken knowing that it’s the last one. I read Blanche Passes Go when it was first published in 2000, I expected the fifth book in a couple of years’ time. But years — and then a decade — came and went, and still no Blanche book from author Barbara Neely.
So I’ve been terribly grateful to Brash Books for re-releasing the original four books in paperback and the Kindle format. They’re just as fresh, just as topical, just as sassy and funny and touching as they were in the 1990s.
In Blanche Passes Go, Blanche takes a leave from her new home in Boston to return to her sleepy hometown of Farleigh, N.C., which she fled at the end of the first book in the series, Blanche on the Lam. Blanche is full of hope about her homecoming, meeting a new man and anticipating helping her best friend Ardell with her new catering business. But poor Blanche can’t get a break! On her first night back in town, who should she run into but David Palmer? The white, entitled rich boy Palmer raped Blanche eight years ago. Faced with living in fear or getting her own back, longtime readers can guess what Blanche will do…. However, readers won’t come close to guessing the shocking ending or the many twists and turns Neely sprinkles throughout Blanche Passes Go.
Which brings us to the 15 years we readers have waited for the next chapter in Blanche’s life. Please, please, Professor Neely! We don’t want to bid goodbye to Blanche! You’ve said that you saw mystery novels as a great vehicle for discussing race, class, gender, and other social issues for new audiences. The need for that still exists today! Have pity on us, and grace us with another Blanche book!
In the interest of full disclosure, I received this book from NetGalley and Brash Books in exchange for an honest review.
So I’ve been terribly grateful to Brash Books for re-releasing the original four books in paperback and the Kindle format. They’re just as fresh, just as topical, just as sassy and funny and touching as they were in the 1990s.
In Blanche Passes Go, Blanche takes a leave from her new home in Boston to return to her sleepy hometown of Farleigh, N.C., which she fled at the end of the first book in the series, Blanche on the Lam. Blanche is full of hope about her homecoming, meeting a new man and anticipating helping her best friend Ardell with her new catering business. But poor Blanche can’t get a break! On her first night back in town, who should she run into but David Palmer? The white, entitled rich boy Palmer raped Blanche eight years ago. Faced with living in fear or getting her own back, longtime readers can guess what Blanche will do…. However, readers won’t come close to guessing the shocking ending or the many twists and turns Neely sprinkles throughout Blanche Passes Go.
Which brings us to the 15 years we readers have waited for the next chapter in Blanche’s life. Please, please, Professor Neely! We don’t want to bid goodbye to Blanche! You’ve said that you saw mystery novels as a great vehicle for discussing race, class, gender, and other social issues for new audiences. The need for that still exists today! Have pity on us, and grace us with another Blanche book!
In the interest of full disclosure, I received this book from NetGalley and Brash Books in exchange for an honest review.
April 2, 2017
The last in the Blanche series and the most polished of the lot. Blanche returns home to North Carolina, is reunited with her best friend Ardell and confronts an old enemy. Ardell and Blanche team up to deliver high-end catering to North Carolina's wealthy party set, but are drawn into a dangerous game of blackmail and murder. The story is gripping enough to be read in one sitting, yet complex enough to be worth spending time with. As always, social issues are deftly interwoven with a cracking detective story. This time, domestic and sexual violence are at the heart of the plot. Characters from previous books reappear and the past and present collide in heartbreaking ways. Blanche even finds time to start dating. Her joys and fears at a new relationships are the most beautifully written sections of the book.
Blanche - I will truly, deeply, madly love you forever. The ending leaves several unresolved story lines, but I will enjoy completing them in my head. Blanche, Ardell, and her family in particular deserve a happy ending.
Trish - I am eternally grateful that you recommended this series to me. I'm now busy adding the series to all my friends' Kindles, so that they can enjoy the sarcastic, undaunted whirlwind that is Blanche White.
Blanche - I will truly, deeply, madly love you forever. The ending leaves several unresolved story lines, but I will enjoy completing them in my head. Blanche, Ardell, and her family in particular deserve a happy ending.
Trish - I am eternally grateful that you recommended this series to me. I'm now busy adding the series to all my friends' Kindles, so that they can enjoy the sarcastic, undaunted whirlwind that is Blanche White.
July 16, 2014
There aren't nearly enough mysteries starring people of color, so I pretty much gobbled up all the Blanche series.
February 13, 2020
Enjoyable installment and I'm sad that there aren't any more to pick up.
December 13, 2022
I'm sad that this is the last book featuring Blanche, but while there are some unresolved story arc, Blanche Passes Go is otherwise a fairly satisfying conclusion to Barbara Neely's series. As with previous installments, this is technically a murder mystery in that a murder occurs and Blanche is interested in finding out who committed it, but there's no real hunting for clues and not a single cop appears. Neely instead uses Blanche's trip back to her home town in North Carolina as a backdrop for her exploration of domestic violence, generational trauma, and racism. At times a tough read, but Blanche's voice is always distinct and clear enough to keep me reading on.
June 22, 2020
I loved this. This had a focus on sexual and domestic violence.
May 13, 2022
I was sad to see it end, but I found it to be a satisfying end to the series. Imma miss Blanche and can see myself rereading this series in the future.
November 5, 2021
I'm so sad to have reached the end of this series.
January 4, 2021
I have loved every minute I have spent reading the Blanche White series. She is an amateur sleuth who uses her job as a domestic worker and the invisibility that comes with it to get herself both into and out of sticky situations. The characters are fantastic, the dialogue is sharp and full of wit, and the plots are well-constructed. It is a shame that this series hasn't gotten more attention. Go back and start with the first one, Blanche on the Lam - there are only 4 in the series and each one is a treat.
April 18, 2012
I'm so sad to see the end of this series. I really enjoyed spending time with Blanche and I was half in love with Thelvin. While it's not always easy to read Barbara Neeley's books, she definitely shakes things up, makes you think. I'm definitely going to miss Blanche. I'll just have to do another reread in twenty years.
September 27, 2023
This is the 4th and final installment in the Blanche White series.
I really enjoyed all of the characters. The author touched on some real-life issues regarding blacks and whites.
She was not afraid to address racsim as it really happened, but at the same time, she kept you interested and entertained in the story.
Rest in peace, Barbara Neely. A job well done!!
I really enjoyed all of the characters. The author touched on some real-life issues regarding blacks and whites.
She was not afraid to address racsim as it really happened, but at the same time, she kept you interested and entertained in the story.
Rest in peace, Barbara Neely. A job well done!!
October 4, 2020
I had heard great things about this series, but only recently picked it up. Typical of me, I started with Book 4. No worries--it was easy to get to know Blanche White, an African American domestic worker with a complex backstory. Blanche is simply a marvelous character: smart, funny, fearless, and yet vulnerable. The mystery of who killed a young white woman from a poor rural family intertwines with Blanche's need to get revenge on a wealthy man who raped her years ago. To find the info she needs to solve both problems, Blanche takes us into a parallel society of Black cooks, domestic workers, small business owners, and elderly busybodies. Whodunnit takes a back seat to the sheer pleasure of the journey. Highly recommended.
May 13, 2009
The mystery's resolution lacks a bit of oomph, but the story still manages to be involving. (This is true even after the reveal; I love the last scene.) Blanche returns home to North Carolina to help her best friend with a new catering business and decide whether she wants to join her in the venture. Blanche's somewhat difficult relationship with her mother is very well written, and I really like how Neely addresses the issue of Blanche aging.
One of my favorite characters from Blanche on the Lam makes a return, as well. (There are pretty extensive spoilers for that book in Blanche Passes Go, though, so don't read the two out of order if that's a concern.)
One of my favorite characters from Blanche on the Lam makes a return, as well. (There are pretty extensive spoilers for that book in Blanche Passes Go, though, so don't read the two out of order if that's a concern.)
January 27, 2015
I was sorry to read that the author Barbara Neely is finished with Blanche White books. Blanche is a fantastic character. I would like to see her in more situations. I find the way she grapples with real issues thought provoking. These books are not just mysteries although the stories revolve around something mysterious. In this one Blanche explores the way men treat women. Some of it is horrific but some is more subtle. The way Blanche's (surface) great new possible boyfriend treats her and her reaction to it reminded me of my own life. I hope I have evolved as much as Blanche has. BTW this is not a male bashing story.
November 24, 2020
This is the last in the series and I devoured all four books eagerly.
Blanche White seems so real that it is easy to believe that she does exist outside the pages of Barbara Neely’s books. She is a woman brought to life by another woman, whose personal experience as a life-long activist probably gives the book and its characters their humanity. Blanche is not conventionally good looking and is seemingly powerless, working as a maid. And this powerlessness makes her vulnerable, getting her hurt, physically and emotionally, but she picks herself up, sometimes with sheer effort and sometimes thanks to wonderful friends and family and continues to be her nosy, forceful self. Blanche also puts herself first, unabashedly. She is vocal about her needs, sexual and otherwise. She cheats the system if she can get away with it. She makes mistakes, sometimes terrible ones, but she survives them.
Over the past few months, I have been reading non-fiction on racism. Nearly every insight those books served up is here, presented as the lived experience of Black men and women beautifully chronicled. The mystery is not the thing in these books. I think the genre offered Neely a vehicle to articulate her thoughts, to tackle racism and sexism, and to illustrate systemic injustice. Blanche White is a character who questioned my ideas of right and wrong since I personally like rules and sometimes tend to obey them blindly. I thought myself capable of seeing the greys, but Blanche made me wonder if I really was. I don’t know yet if I like Blanche White but I cannot help admiring her.
I came for the mystery and I stayed for Blanche White.
Blanche White seems so real that it is easy to believe that she does exist outside the pages of Barbara Neely’s books. She is a woman brought to life by another woman, whose personal experience as a life-long activist probably gives the book and its characters their humanity. Blanche is not conventionally good looking and is seemingly powerless, working as a maid. And this powerlessness makes her vulnerable, getting her hurt, physically and emotionally, but she picks herself up, sometimes with sheer effort and sometimes thanks to wonderful friends and family and continues to be her nosy, forceful self. Blanche also puts herself first, unabashedly. She is vocal about her needs, sexual and otherwise. She cheats the system if she can get away with it. She makes mistakes, sometimes terrible ones, but she survives them.
Over the past few months, I have been reading non-fiction on racism. Nearly every insight those books served up is here, presented as the lived experience of Black men and women beautifully chronicled. The mystery is not the thing in these books. I think the genre offered Neely a vehicle to articulate her thoughts, to tackle racism and sexism, and to illustrate systemic injustice. Blanche White is a character who questioned my ideas of right and wrong since I personally like rules and sometimes tend to obey them blindly. I thought myself capable of seeing the greys, but Blanche made me wonder if I really was. I don’t know yet if I like Blanche White but I cannot help admiring her.
I came for the mystery and I stayed for Blanche White.
November 8, 2022
I really enjoyed the overt un-tone-policed anti-racist and feminist observations by Blanche who is proud, prickly, can be reflexive but also refuses to take white bullshit or male bullshit (or especially white, male bullshit) on board.
The plot itself was somewhat convoluted. The mystery held some twists. There was too much of Blanche's love/sex-life and quite frankly I thought it was reasonable of her not to want a man acting possessive and controlling so I thought her self-reflexivity about that was a bit excessive. The stuff giving us insight into "Miz Cora" was useful for context and the getting sick of the DV next door and the penny dropping that women have to stand up for each other was the best part of the whole story. Blanche's imperfect but really sound friendship with Ardell is also great.
If there were more of these I would read them but I believe that is it :/
The plot itself was somewhat convoluted. The mystery held some twists. There was too much of Blanche's love/sex-life and quite frankly I thought it was reasonable of her not to want a man acting possessive and controlling so I thought her self-reflexivity about that was a bit excessive. The stuff giving us insight into "Miz Cora" was useful for context and the getting sick of the DV next door and the penny dropping that women have to stand up for each other was the best part of the whole story. Blanche's imperfect but really sound friendship with Ardell is also great.
If there were more of these I would read them but I believe that is it :/
August 22, 2018
The outline of the story is in the blurb, so I won't re-iterate here. This is another engrossing book in the series, and when I finished, I felt a bit sad that there aren't more Blanche White books.
Aside from the main plot of interlocking investigations, the book deals a lot with racial issues, domestic abuse, interpersonal relations, families, strained friendships, female independence... The whole four-book series would be a great addition to any high school course in American Literature. If you're a secondary school teacher in the 21st century trying to decide between Huck Finn and Blanche White, I'd advise the latter. (Oh, wait a minute: there are frank passages in here about religion and sex that some parents might object to. Sorry, kids, you'll have to hide these books from Mom or just read 'em on your phone while pretending to check Instagr*m.)
Aside from the main plot of interlocking investigations, the book deals a lot with racial issues, domestic abuse, interpersonal relations, families, strained friendships, female independence... The whole four-book series would be a great addition to any high school course in American Literature. If you're a secondary school teacher in the 21st century trying to decide between Huck Finn and Blanche White, I'd advise the latter. (Oh, wait a minute: there are frank passages in here about religion and sex that some parents might object to. Sorry, kids, you'll have to hide these books from Mom or just read 'em on your phone while pretending to check Instagr*m.)
May 16, 2018
This is the fourth and final book in the series, and I was so glad to finally read it after enjoying the other three several years ago. Yes, it's a mystery, but it is also a novel about race and class in America (the story takes place in the year 2000 in North Carolina). As Linda Ellerbee notes on the book jacket, "Neely writes from the perspective of Blanche, an intelligent, perceptive, poor, working-class black woman with a wry sense of humor and a healthy sense of place." Blanche is feisty, honest, and independent, the kind of girlfriend I'd like to hang out with.
March 6, 2021
The fourth in a series of “mysteries” pursued by Blanche White, an independent, self-aware, and opinionated black woman in the service industry. In this one, she has returned to her home town in North Carolina to help out her best friend who has a catering business and to deal with her past when she was raped by a white man. This is not a typical mystery and Blanche doesn’t always get it right, but it’s a refreshing take on this genre and relevant as Blanche and others deal with racism, domestic violence, and more. You can’t help but admire Blanche and her efforts to move forward, all done with love and humor.
October 23, 2018
This mystery, first published in 200o, is a great book to read today. The story revolves around Blanche's revenge upon a white man who raped her when she was a young woman . But it's much more than that. It's about the Me in the Me, Too Movement, the unrecorded millions of African and Native women who have been raped en masse ever since the arrival of Europeans. Neely unearths the historical, racial and sexual relationships that underlie the drama - elements often ignored by writers in this genre. Blanche is a smart, powerful and very real character that ordinary women will identify with. If you are thinking person, you will really like this book.
August 11, 2015
“Blanche’s mind rang with remembered slights and taunts, and echoes of that awful, heartbreaking instant of fear that was a part of every trip into the white world—a fear of being refused or given poor service because she was black, stopped by a cop because she was black.”
I finished reading Blanche Passes Go on the second anniversary of the death of Michael Brown, who was shot dead by a Missouri cop for jaywalking. Bernie Sanders, the candidate who fancies himself the liberal savior for all progressive-minded Americans, spoke here in Seattle that day. The purpose of his talk, apart from campaigning and fundraising, was to celebrate the birthday of Social Security. The speech was disrupted by a pair of African-American women who took exception to his myopia.
So I guess you could say that everyone, even those that don’t generally enjoy mysteries, ought to be reading this book right about now. In particular, if the reader is still trying to figure out why so many people, particularly people of color, get upset with the clueless slogan “All lives matter”, this book is here, just for you. Neely approaches issues of race, class, and gender in a way that is clear but not unkind. It’s her best work to date, and could not have been published by Brash Books at a more appropriate time. My great thanks go to them and the people at Net Galley for providing me with a DRC, and to Neely for laying it all out so that anybody who has a willing heart can get the picture.
In this fourth Blanche White mystery, Blanche has gone home to Farleigh, North Carolina for a vacation, and to try partnering a catering business with her best friend, Ardell. But Farleigh is a small place, and she can’t avoid running up against David Palmer, a Caucasian man that raped her. She never reported it, of course; were they really going to haul the well-heeled, powerful white man for a sperm sample, given the long history of Caucasian men raping Black women with impunity? Not likely! So when her long-simmering rage is ignited by the sight of him, she vows to not only get mad, but to get even as well.
Blanche White novels always have multiple threads that weave in and out of the plot line, but this is the most complex and impressive yet. Not only does Blanche have to grapple with Farleigh and Palmer, she is back in her home town, and her mama is still here. Like many women, Blanche has hit middle age and menopause with a renewed, powerful yearning to know more about her mama, who never stops talking but never gives away the personal information Blanche is almost begging for, and about her father, about whom virtually nothing has been told her. Blanche decides that once a person has children, their privacy is no longer as sacred as it was before, and a lot of personal information becomes family property. I loved that.
Well into the book, Ardell accuses Blanche of sounding exactly like her mother, and Blanche is dumbfounded to realize it’s true. I threw back my head and laughed out loud. It’s the rare woman that doesn’t hear her own mother coming out of her mouth sooner or later, and the moment was built so deftly and executed so well that it landed hard on my funny-bone.
Other Blanche novels have accentuated the protagonist’s tightly held independence. Here, she meets a fine man named Thelvin on the Amtrak coming into Farleigh, and at some point, she has to decide just how flexible (or inflexible) she is going to be.
Another component is Mumsfield, an acquaintance that has Down’s Syndrome and is about to be married to someone who may be after his money. This aspect of the story, like the others, is skillfully crafted. Mumsfield is not completely helpless, and the fact that he has Down’s does not make him Blanche’s friend, as he claims to be. There is still that division of white privilege. It’s not that Blanche could not have a white friend, but it would have to be someone with ownership of what that means.
Because all of these components are told in the third person omniscient, and because the writer is a complete badass, we are privy to all the intricacies involved. Add a problem with domestic abuse next door to the Miz Alice where Blanche is staying, and you have an interesting stew indeedy.
Highly recommended.
I finished reading Blanche Passes Go on the second anniversary of the death of Michael Brown, who was shot dead by a Missouri cop for jaywalking. Bernie Sanders, the candidate who fancies himself the liberal savior for all progressive-minded Americans, spoke here in Seattle that day. The purpose of his talk, apart from campaigning and fundraising, was to celebrate the birthday of Social Security. The speech was disrupted by a pair of African-American women who took exception to his myopia.
So I guess you could say that everyone, even those that don’t generally enjoy mysteries, ought to be reading this book right about now. In particular, if the reader is still trying to figure out why so many people, particularly people of color, get upset with the clueless slogan “All lives matter”, this book is here, just for you. Neely approaches issues of race, class, and gender in a way that is clear but not unkind. It’s her best work to date, and could not have been published by Brash Books at a more appropriate time. My great thanks go to them and the people at Net Galley for providing me with a DRC, and to Neely for laying it all out so that anybody who has a willing heart can get the picture.
In this fourth Blanche White mystery, Blanche has gone home to Farleigh, North Carolina for a vacation, and to try partnering a catering business with her best friend, Ardell. But Farleigh is a small place, and she can’t avoid running up against David Palmer, a Caucasian man that raped her. She never reported it, of course; were they really going to haul the well-heeled, powerful white man for a sperm sample, given the long history of Caucasian men raping Black women with impunity? Not likely! So when her long-simmering rage is ignited by the sight of him, she vows to not only get mad, but to get even as well.
Blanche White novels always have multiple threads that weave in and out of the plot line, but this is the most complex and impressive yet. Not only does Blanche have to grapple with Farleigh and Palmer, she is back in her home town, and her mama is still here. Like many women, Blanche has hit middle age and menopause with a renewed, powerful yearning to know more about her mama, who never stops talking but never gives away the personal information Blanche is almost begging for, and about her father, about whom virtually nothing has been told her. Blanche decides that once a person has children, their privacy is no longer as sacred as it was before, and a lot of personal information becomes family property. I loved that.
Well into the book, Ardell accuses Blanche of sounding exactly like her mother, and Blanche is dumbfounded to realize it’s true. I threw back my head and laughed out loud. It’s the rare woman that doesn’t hear her own mother coming out of her mouth sooner or later, and the moment was built so deftly and executed so well that it landed hard on my funny-bone.
Other Blanche novels have accentuated the protagonist’s tightly held independence. Here, she meets a fine man named Thelvin on the Amtrak coming into Farleigh, and at some point, she has to decide just how flexible (or inflexible) she is going to be.
Another component is Mumsfield, an acquaintance that has Down’s Syndrome and is about to be married to someone who may be after his money. This aspect of the story, like the others, is skillfully crafted. Mumsfield is not completely helpless, and the fact that he has Down’s does not make him Blanche’s friend, as he claims to be. There is still that division of white privilege. It’s not that Blanche could not have a white friend, but it would have to be someone with ownership of what that means.
Because all of these components are told in the third person omniscient, and because the writer is a complete badass, we are privy to all the intricacies involved. Add a problem with domestic abuse next door to the Miz Alice where Blanche is staying, and you have an interesting stew indeedy.
Highly recommended.
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May 14, 2016I love this series and I'm kind of sad that this is the last book. I thought that this was better than the last book because it gives you more history of Blanche's past, relationship with her mother and best friend and a love interest for Blanche. As always Blanche is forced to use her PI skills to figure out a crime(s) and a friend the past joins us again!
February 1, 2013
Barbara Neely is a treasure. Read this book for keener insight into black-white relations in America. Enjoy Neely's assured writing. Delight in Blanche, the main character, a woman anyone would be proud to know. And, the mystery is good, too.
June 1, 2008
You'll have to read this one yourself -- I'm still too busy laughing!
May 5, 2009
i love this series b/c it analyzes the intersection of race, class and gender in a good mystery. i wish she would write more in the series.
August 30, 2013
I quick read....one of my favorite novels from the 1990's....murder mystery, funny, captivating.
August 2, 2023
Really 2.5 ⭐️
A disappointing ending to the book and the series. Even though Blanche isn’t a detective (formal or otherwise), the first book was able to use race, class, and womanhood to solve a murder mystery. It was entertaining, engaging, and deep. The subsequent books were rehashing the first, and lacked the novelty of “Blanche on the Lam”.
This book especially could have been so much better. The idea of Blanche going back home and facing the originator of her trauma - which permeates the entire series - was promising. But there’s too much B and C plot, taking away from the promising core. Blanche sees her rapist once, and she flees. The fact that the man makes very few appearances in the book - we see his sister, his parents, his friends, but very little of him - and he travels in the same circles that Blanche works in, makes him more of a boogeyman than a real threat. When we DO see and hear about him, the information that we’re given is completely opposite of Blanche’s beliefs. While Blanche investigates David, the people who she asks about him never say he is evil or cruel. They do say this about his friend, who is the story’s ACTUAL killer.
So I’m not sure what the author is suggesting in this novel. Is David an awful man? No one else suggests that he’s a monster, even Black women who would be equally as vulnerable as Blanche in this society. I also wonder if David was Blanche’s rapist, especially since we see how her determination to get revenge results in two people being murdered and the real killer getting away with the crime. I suppose you could argue that David’s actions against Blanche ultimately resulted in his death, but I wonder if maybe David wasn’t the rapist, that his friend/the killer was, and the wrong man was killed. The novel barely explores how Blanche’s trauma led to the novel’s penultimate events.
There’s a lot more to explore in this novel than the author chose to do, leaving so much opportunity within the pages.
A disappointing ending to the book and the series. Even though Blanche isn’t a detective (formal or otherwise), the first book was able to use race, class, and womanhood to solve a murder mystery. It was entertaining, engaging, and deep. The subsequent books were rehashing the first, and lacked the novelty of “Blanche on the Lam”.
This book especially could have been so much better. The idea of Blanche going back home and facing the originator of her trauma - which permeates the entire series - was promising. But there’s too much B and C plot, taking away from the promising core. Blanche sees her rapist once, and she flees. The fact that the man makes very few appearances in the book - we see his sister, his parents, his friends, but very little of him - and he travels in the same circles that Blanche works in, makes him more of a boogeyman than a real threat. When we DO see and hear about him, the information that we’re given is completely opposite of Blanche’s beliefs. While Blanche investigates David, the people who she asks about him never say he is evil or cruel. They do say this about his friend, who is the story’s ACTUAL killer.
So I’m not sure what the author is suggesting in this novel. Is David an awful man? No one else suggests that he’s a monster, even Black women who would be equally as vulnerable as Blanche in this society. I also wonder if David was Blanche’s rapist, especially since we see how her determination to get revenge results in two people being murdered and the real killer getting away with the crime. I suppose you could argue that David’s actions against Blanche ultimately resulted in his death, but I wonder if maybe David wasn’t the rapist, that his friend/the killer was, and the wrong man was killed. The novel barely explores how Blanche’s trauma led to the novel’s penultimate events.
There’s a lot more to explore in this novel than the author chose to do, leaving so much opportunity within the pages.
August 22, 2023
The last book #4, written in the Blanche White murder mystery series, came out in 2000. And unfortunately it does not seem dated when it focuses on racism, sexism, sexual and domestic abuse. How has nothing changed in 23 years?! The author, Barbara Neely, has won many book and humanitarian awards and is quite the Black advocate, which comes across strongly in this book. The other books in the series seemed a little lighter than the subject matter of this book, but I think classifying them as cozies is a mistake.
Blanche is a large, dark, black woman who has been working as a domestic, cleaning houses for white clients and raising her dead sister's two kids. They are now teenagers and working themselves for the summer. So Blanche leaves Boston and heads down to Farleigh, NC for a summer of helping her old friend Ardell with her catering business. Farleigh is her hometown, and while it holds some good memories and friends, it also hold some terrible traumatic memories of childhood taunting and adult rape.
As in the previous books, a murder occurs and Blanche becomes involved in trying to solve it. She always does this by consulting the invisible people; the black men and women who work as cleaners, bartenders, sales people, drivers, and gardeners who are in positions to overhear things. But in this case, she gets a lot of things wrong.
The other plots involve Blanche's mistrust and caution in getting involved with a new man, Thelvin, the very obvious domestic abuse going on with a neighbor, and learning from her close mouthed mother the true story of her father. There is a lot of anger throughout the book and Neely makes her position quite clear on how she feels about prejudiced whites, violence toward women, the status of blacks in the New South, and even blacks who cow tow to whites.
Blanche is a large, dark, black woman who has been working as a domestic, cleaning houses for white clients and raising her dead sister's two kids. They are now teenagers and working themselves for the summer. So Blanche leaves Boston and heads down to Farleigh, NC for a summer of helping her old friend Ardell with her catering business. Farleigh is her hometown, and while it holds some good memories and friends, it also hold some terrible traumatic memories of childhood taunting and adult rape.
As in the previous books, a murder occurs and Blanche becomes involved in trying to solve it. She always does this by consulting the invisible people; the black men and women who work as cleaners, bartenders, sales people, drivers, and gardeners who are in positions to overhear things. But in this case, she gets a lot of things wrong.
The other plots involve Blanche's mistrust and caution in getting involved with a new man, Thelvin, the very obvious domestic abuse going on with a neighbor, and learning from her close mouthed mother the true story of her father. There is a lot of anger throughout the book and Neely makes her position quite clear on how she feels about prejudiced whites, violence toward women, the status of blacks in the New South, and even blacks who cow tow to whites.
April 21, 2018
This is a four book series and this is the last of it. I've now read all four.
Blanche is coming back to North Carolina to help her best friend, Ardell, with her catering business over the summer. Both Malek and Taifa are in their teens and working summer jobs, so Blanche is free to go. She is also coming back to face a man and an event, from her past, that have had sway on her life ever since.
On the train down she meets Thelvin, and there seems to be an instant attraction between them. Thelvin is the conductor and just happens to live in Durham, which is in close proximity to where Blanche will be staying in Farleigh. This thread of attraction runs through the book and is also influenced by Blanche's past.
Blanche is happy to be back and see Ardell. It is topped off when she finds that she will be living in the Miz Alice: the little two room cottage built by Ardell's Uncle Russell and named for the first, and pretty much only, tenant to move in, Miz Alice. This gives Blance privacy and freedom. Freedom to investigate into the life of the man whose actions caused Blanche to flee her town in the first place.
There are twists and turns, and Blanche has to really pry to get any information. It seems the place may consider itself to be part of the New South, but not much has really changed in the relationship between the blacks and whites. The information she is able to uncover and the reactions among the white community lead to unexpected results, for Blanche, her investigation and the people she is investigating.
Blanche is coming back to North Carolina to help her best friend, Ardell, with her catering business over the summer. Both Malek and Taifa are in their teens and working summer jobs, so Blanche is free to go. She is also coming back to face a man and an event, from her past, that have had sway on her life ever since.
On the train down she meets Thelvin, and there seems to be an instant attraction between them. Thelvin is the conductor and just happens to live in Durham, which is in close proximity to where Blanche will be staying in Farleigh. This thread of attraction runs through the book and is also influenced by Blanche's past.
Blanche is happy to be back and see Ardell. It is topped off when she finds that she will be living in the Miz Alice: the little two room cottage built by Ardell's Uncle Russell and named for the first, and pretty much only, tenant to move in, Miz Alice. This gives Blance privacy and freedom. Freedom to investigate into the life of the man whose actions caused Blanche to flee her town in the first place.
There are twists and turns, and Blanche has to really pry to get any information. It seems the place may consider itself to be part of the New South, but not much has really changed in the relationship between the blacks and whites. The information she is able to uncover and the reactions among the white community lead to unexpected results, for Blanche, her investigation and the people she is investigating.
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