Publisher's Synopsis
Storyville, New Orleans, 1907. Storyville, New Orleans. Along these scarlet streets, two thousand "sporting women" service gentlemen and rounders in grand mansions and filthy dime-a-trick cribs. The rye whiskey flows like a brown river and morphine and cocaine are sold over the counter. Meanwhile, the first crazy notes of the music they call jass are blasting out of the saloons and dance halls. Creole detective Valentin St. Cyr pursues a killer among the hustlers, pimps, fancy men, madams, whores, thieves who swarm the twenty blocks after the sun goes down. With a fascinating cast of characters that includes Tom Anderson, "The King of Storyville," the lovely one-time "dove" Justine, the famed madam Lulu White, and the lunatic jazz pioneer Buddy Bolden, Valentin polices a miasma of corruption and sin. The Shamus Award winning novel melds history and fiction in a tale of mayhem, madness, and murder in the only legally-sanctioned red light district in American history. -- Best First Novel - 2002 Shamus Awards -- Best of 2003 List - Borders Books -- Best New Series - Booklist -- Nominee - 2002 LA Times Book Prize -- Nominee - 2002 Barry Award -- Nominee - 2005 Falcon Award CCB is pleased to re-publish the Valentin St. Cyr mystery series in it's entirety and to present the next two new novels in this meticulously researched and widely praised series. "This atmospheric, accomplished novel brings to vivid, shocking life the mansions of vice with their 'sporting girls' and their madams and, above all, the tragic figure of King Bolden." -- The Telegraph (U.K) "St. Cyr takes his place alongside Harry Bosch and Dave Robicheaux: gripping, visceral, and above all, human." - The Critical Mystery Tour
