The Axeman's Jazz by
Julie Smith
pbk out September 99
(Slow Dancer Press)
at £7.99
Cast your mind back to last weekend's hot, sultry weather and it'll put you right in the mood for Julie Smith's atmospheric New Orleans thriller.
Homicide cop Skip Langdon is all set for a romantic vacation when a small town girl who moved to the big city is brutally murdered.
But this is no ordinary killing. For her murderer quickly announces to the news media that he is the Axeman, a modern-day reincarnation of the city's
notorious serial killer from seventy years before. And for Skip, it's the start of a depressing trawl through the city's self-help groups, covering every addiction from food to sex, a journey that teaches her she may have more in common with the city's lost souls than she likes to think.
From the evening jazz to the luxury of breakfast beignets, Julie Smith brings New Orleans to breathless, sweating life as a background to a
seamless tapestry of compelling psychological suspense. Add a heroine who is endearingly human, and it's a mix that's hard to resist.
(
Val McDermid
- Gold Dagger winner & creator of Lindsay Gordon, Kate Brannigan & Tony Hill)
The Axeman's Jazz by
Julie Smith