Boom Town

YA bestseller Stone (Chaos Theory) makes an auspicious adult debut with this steamy, serpentine noir centered on Boom Town, Atlanta’s hottest Black strip club. Dance manager Lyriq still hasn’t gotten over the disappearance two years earlier of her lover and dance partner, Lucky. Then Charm, a 19-year-old stripper with an uncanny resemblance to Lucky, vanishes after catching the eye of white club regular Thomas Jefferson McIntyre. When Dejuan, whose mother was renting Charm a room, suggests that he might go to the police, Lyriq steps in to keep the cops away from the club, and swiftly discovers she’s put herself in a world of danger. Stone convincingly conjures Boom Town’s glitzy-gritty grind, and shows the wide range of women whose circumstances have made the pole seem their best and only option, from trafficking survivor Lyriq to the sharp-witted Lucky, who calculates that her education degree from Emory would get her a job paying only half as much as her dancing. Stone crafts a propulsive plot, though the book’s hopscotching timelines get a touch too convoluted and a few of the climactic reveals strain credibility. Still, this is an arresting page-turner. Agent: Mollie Glick, CAA. (Oct.)