Overview

Murder is a Matter of Color is a racially charged murder mystery, a detective story set in an unnamed city somewhere in the United States. The story contains violence, death, fear, the drug trade, sex, honor, and retribution. The plot centers on a black police officer, Detective Roy Hines, and his struggle to obtain acceptance and inner peace in a bigoted community, while attempting to overcome numerous obstacles thrown in his path. Drugs are distributed from a restaurant, one of the finer dining establishments in the city. The owner, Paul Palmer, is forced under the threat of blackmail and endangerment to his family, to cooperate with the drug dealers. The local drug lord, Neal Peterson, posing as a respectable businessman is blackmailing the owner, Palmer, into cooperating with the drug dealers by threatening harm to his family. Money collected from the sale of the drugs is spent on the organization of a paramilitary Force: "C.L.A.W.," or "Civil Liberties Are for Whites." This group is bent on keeping African Americans hooked on drugs and, therefore, forever downtrodden and "beneath" the white race. Aided by cohorts Ralph Manchetti and Colonel Bubba Dorcey. Peterson is determined to wreck havoc by instigating racial unrest while still collecting sufficient drug money to appease his suppliers. Peterson, through "C.L.A.W.," stages a mass demonstration which evolves into a full-blown riot and confrontation between the paramilitary force and the local police. A crime that goes horrendously wrong and ends in brutal murder brings Detective Roy Hines and his Sergeant, James Woodson, into the picture. Loose ends are slowly pieced together, with Woodson ultimately killed in a car wreck, discovered to have been caused by a deliberate tampering of the brakes. Neal Peterson is savagely murdered. It can be any number of people in the novel. The reader discovers who the murderer is in the final paragraphs of the book.