The Black Stiletto: Black &; White : A Novel

It's 1959, and Judy Cooper, the Black Stiletto, sets out to confront a dangerous gangster known as the heroin king of Harlem when the teenage daughter of her beloved martial arts instructor ends up a prisoner in an uptown narcotics den. The Stiletto has troubles of her own -- a shady filmmaker is threatening to reveal her identity to the world -- a close friend of her landlord and substitute father may be in cahoots with the Harlem criminals -- she's fighting for racial equality -- and she has fallen in love again. This time with an FBI agent who has standing orders to arrest her. Meanwhile the Stiletto's son faces his own blackmail crisis when he finds out that there is a second copy of an 8mm film he found in his mother's strongbox -- showing the Black Stiletto unmasked in a film studio dressing room. As he tries to stop the filmmaker's son's extortion plot, he learns that his daughter, Gina, has been brutally assaulted in New York City. The past and the present meet.