Charlotte Carter

Page Updated: 09/09/02

Charlotte Carter

Walking Bones

pbk 04 Jul 02

Coq au Vin

Rhode Island Red

Interview with Tangled Web

by Charlotte Carter

About the Author

Bibliography

British Pbk Original - Serpents Tail (2002)

Walking Bones
Walking Bones is an American love story cast in deepest noir. It’s the story of a black woman named Nettie who came to New York to be a model but ends up as a designer. One night in a bar, Nettie meets a man, a drunk white man named Albert Press. He insults her, she smashes a glass in his face. And so begins a strange, twisted kind of love affair. It becomes a lurching dance of black and white, sadist and masochist, that can only ever end in disaster.
Like Chester Himes’ The End Of A Primitive, this is an American tragedy that unpicks the sexuality of racism and the strange contradictions of sexual power. Walking Bones is an important addition to the canon of contemporary noir writing.
Praise for Charlotte Carter:
`Carter has what impresses me more than just about anything in a crime writer: the practised discipline needed to craft functional, human sentences which flow one into the next without embellishment or posturing’ Crime Time
`An author for the future’ Time Out
`Carter’s writing is exhilarating. Much of the time she is poetic and evocative; other times she’s funky, sensuous, and downright vulgar. And all of this is like a Charlie Parker solo - teasing, surprising, powerful’ Cleveland Plain Dealer

British Pbk Original - Serpents Tail (1999)

Coq au Vin
Nanette, the sax-playing heroine of Rhode Island Red, finds herself on a trip back to the land of her dreams. Yep, she's on a plane to Paris, France, in search of her wild aunt Vivian. But Vivian's gone, leaving no forwarding address. So what's a girl to do in Paris in the springtime? Why, fall in love with the first cute young dread-locked autodidact she meets, of course. And so Nanette and Andre embark on a crazy trawl though the jazz-fired world of Paris's black expats in search of aunt Viv and her mysterious one time lover, legendary bluesman Little Rube Haskins. Meanwhile there's a killer always just one step ahead of them.
Funny, sexy, dangerous and impossibly romantic, Coq Au Vin is a mystery set amid one of the century's enduring love affairs - the one between black America and Paris.
'This Grace Jones lookalike with a degree in French is a splendid creation' Sunday Telegraph
'Charlotte Carter has what impresses me more than just about anything in a crime writer: the practised discipline needed to craft functional, human sentences which flow one into the next without embellishment or posturing' Crime Time
'A refreshing new kind of private dick' Pink Paper

First British Edition Serpents Tail (1997)

Rhode Island Red
See Review by Andrew Taylor - author of the highly acclaimed Roth & Lydmouth Series
See Review by Lynda Ross
Street saxophonist and Grace Jones lookalike Nannette has a masters in French, an on-off boyfriend called Walter and a dead undercover cop in her apartment. But her life starts getting really complicated when she discovers $60,000 stuffed into her sax, the cop's ex-colleagues turn up and she's courted by that elegant older man who wants her to teach him everything she knows about Charlie Parker.
And who, or what is Rhode Island Red?
‘Jazz addicts have a treat in store with Rhode Island Red, a book so filled with affection for the form that Charlie Parker seems almost to be another character… It is refreshing to find a heroine who has both a rock-solid moral centre and a sense of humor’ Donna Leon
'Rhode Island Red is elegiac and musical -especially if you prefer bebop to hip-hop. Nan is a wonderful character: a dreamer, head in the clouds, feet on the ceiling. Charlotte Carter has managed to be funky and dreamy at the same time.' Liza Cody
'Wholly delightful... the year's freshest crime debut' GQ
'Sharp, funny and beautifully underscored with jazzy prose riffs' Good HouseKeeping
'Irresistible New York fable... sex and jokes and a love for jazz which blows hot, cool and true from beginning to end' Literary Review
'It's refreshing to find a heroine who has both a rock-solid moral centre and a sense of humour' Sunday Times
'Enough spirit to keep you turning till the final page' The Voice

About The Author
Charlotte Carter is the author of an acclaimed mystery series featuring Nanette Hayes, a young black American jazz musician with a lust for life and a talent for crime solving. Coq au Vin, the second book in the series, has been optioned for the movies. Her short fiction has appeared in a number of American and British anthologies, including John Harvey's Blue Lightning. The first in a new series set in Chicago against the tumultuous backdrop of the 1960s will be published in late 2002 - early 2003. Charlotte Carter has lived in the American Midwest, North Africa and France. She currently resides in NYC with her husband.

Bibliography
N.B. dates and publishers in dark red indicate British First Editions. Dates and publishers in black indicate recent reprints.

Walking Bones (Serpents Tail Pbk, 2002) Pbk Jul 02

Drumsticks ( 2001) Serpents Tail May 01 Pbk Sep 01

Coq au Vin (Serpents Tail Pbk, 1999)

Rhode Island Red (Serpents Tail, 1997)