I’ve been putting off this review for a couple of weeks because I’m still torn about this book. I think the issue is that I respect it and what it’s trying to do, but I didn’t enjoy reading it. Generally I DNF quickly like nobody’s fucking business. And yet, I stuck this one out, wanting to see how it would finish up. I think I’m glad I stuck it out? The ending was more enjoyable than most of the rest of the book I guess.
Martin Grey is a young, scrappy black lawyer, trying to make a name for himself and build his business. When he wins a civil rights case against a giant corporation, people take note. He gets invited to a secretive get together held by the lawyer he bested. At dinner, he and his wife are surrounded by some of the most powerful and wealthy black men in America. He’s giddy about being invited and yet he can’t help getting the feeling that they’re keeping some piece of knowledge away from him. I don’t want to give too much away, but let’s just say he finds out and gets more than he bargained for.
This is a book that examines America’s slavery legacy in an interesting and brutal way. It definitely contains food for thought even though I’m not totally sure it succeeds 100%. I’m being vague on purpose because I want to talk about this aspect of the book without revealing every plot point. This reckoning was not easy to read, but really did make me think about slavery’s legacy.
My biggest complaint with the book is that the women, both black and white, aren’t really given a chance to become fully realized characters. 
Smith stuck to broad caricatures and that was harder to read than the violent parts. These women aren’t very curious about their husbands and seem to get little respect from them anyway. And what about all the super successful black women out there who are wealthy and powerful on their own terms?
It’s like the mirror opposite of when a white woman writes a book about feminism and doesn’t stop to consider the intersection between race and gender. Except here, it’s a black man failing to consider that intersectionality. We do get to spend a few scenes with the wives, but they’re never given any depth and it was hard to see them as actual people rather than plot points. You can’t just write a slavery revenge thriller and forget that black women are out there with their own thoughts and feelings about America’s history.