Transition to Murder

Winner of the Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year, Indie Fiction

“If he had killed me tonight, he’d be sleeping like a baby in an hour. I should be scared by that thought, but mostly I’m angry. Not stomp-your-foot angry. Get even angry. Put a knife in his gut and turn it angry.”

A beautiful young transwoman is brutally murdered. The media looks on blindly, the police go through the motions, but the victim's hairdresser goes ballistic. Bobbi Logan is so outraged by these events that she commits two bold and courageous acts: She comes out as a transwoman herself, sending her career as a hair stylist into a gut-wrenching tailspin, and she begins searching for her friend’s murderer, an investigation that brings her into the vicious web of a powerful, seductive predator who is as charming as he is ruthless.

Originally published under the title Coming Out Can Be Murder, the book tells the chilling story of revenge when a suspected killer lives beyond the reach of the law. Bobbi Logan’s bruising search for truth and justice takes her into the pulsating streets of Chicago’s Boystown neighborhood, the colorful world of high-end hair styling, and the city’s vibrant transgender community. Fast-paced and unsparing in hard details, Transition to Murder is a fresh, original portrayal of the life of a transwoman who is searching to discover her own “self” even as she searches for a killer.

Renee James is an award-winning journalist, as well as a writer, editor and licensed cosmetologist. She has been active in the Chicago transgender community for many years.