Yet when a thriving 15-year-old Black girl who's the pride of her family vanishes in Chicago and the police are eager to dismiss the event as just another 'case of a potential runaway,' the explanation does not sit well with intrepid local TV reporter Jordan Manning. Unlike the media frenzy that ensues when middle-class white women like Gabby Petito go missing, Black girls often disappear without fanfare. But the novel's storyline proves perfectly tailored to Hall's experience and skill set. That's an ambitious agenda, and fiction is a distinctly different mode of storytelling from news reporting, even if taking big issues and making them personal is second nature for the Emmy Award-winner.
Though its subject may sound familiar, journalist and talk-show host Tamron Hall's debut novel As the Wicked Watch is a singular thriller that brings the vulnerability and systemic neglect of Black girls as victims of violent crime into vivid relief.
