New Orleans Mourning by
Julie Smith
pbk out September 98
(Slow Dancer Press)
at £7.99
Skip Langdon is an ungainly, six-foot female rookie cop. Her job in this story is to track down the killer of Chauncey St Amant, a white champion of black civil rights who is assassinated at the Mardi Gras festival. It is a significant murder because he was the 'Rex' of the carnival and at first, it is difficult for Skip or anyone else to figure out a mot~ve or a suspect.
Bitty is the late Chauncey's husband, a chronic alcoholic with a maddening fondness for Henry, her son. Marcelle is her daughter, the apple of Daddy's eye with a four year old son, Andre. Tolliver Albert is the archetypal family friend who features significantly in the plot and the majority of the revelations rely upon a knowledge and understanding of the family' s history. It is for this reason that much of the dialogue concerns the background to each of the characters and their relationships with each other.
Joe Tarantino and Frank O'Rourke are the two officers assigned to the case. Skip encounters the ever- familiar sexism from O'Rourke who simply and unaccountably does not like her. Tarantino is the sensible one who tells Skip that O'Rourke's appalling behaviour is apparently due to 'problems at home.' I get a little tired of these predictable exchanges between male and female officers for whilst there is no doubt that such rampant sexism exists, it seems the norm in every crime book to have a loathsome misogynist standing in the path of the female protagonist. Well maybe that is life but it gets repetitious on occasions.
Needless to say, all is not as it has appeared on the surface and as Skip begins to unearth a series of skeletons in the cupboard, her life is endangered. Her newly acquired boyfriend, Steve, who is a film director gets in on the act and the unravelling of the plot is a long and complicated affair. I had to start this book several times before I was eventually grabbed by it. The first chapter confused me and I have rarely read a book with so many colloquialisms,
particularly ones which I have never before seen in print. However, it is definitely worth battling through the first few chapters because it becomes compelling reading. There is a fine twist at the end and nothing comfortable about some of the political ideas which the book generates.
I have not read anything before which is set in New Orleans and the writer
creates a soulful yet sleazy mood throughout the pages.
New Orleans Mourning by
Julie Smith