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LOUISIANA LAMENT
by Julie Smith
Forge, July 2004
304 pages
$24.95
ISBN: 0765305534


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Baroness de Pontalba, a poet by night, is really Talba Wallis, PI, who works for Eddie Valentino. One day, her half-sister, Janessa, who Talba has seen only once before in her life, calls in a panic. Janessa is at her employer's estate in the white upscale Garden District, and has just found Allyson Brewer, dead, floating in the pool. Talba comes over and calls the police who of course, suspect Janessa for the murder. Angie Valentino, Eddie's lawyer daughter, agrees to take the case.

Shortly thereafter, it is discovered that Cassie, Allyson's daughter, is also dead. Allyson has been shot and Cassie has been stabbed many times. There are two other possible suspects, Rashad, the young black man who lived in the pool house, also a poet, and Austin, Allyson's son. As Talba investigates, she finds that very few people liked Allyson but Cassie was universally loved. Rashad has disappeared, and Austin is nowhere to be seen either.

As with all of Julie Smith's books, both in the Skip Langdon and Talba Wallis series, New Orleans is integral to the story. Talba uses Rashad's poetry to try to figure out his location and what his motivation might have been to kill his employer. She uses plain old shoe leather to find Austin, at his packing plant in the suburbs. All the while, Eddie is trying to figure out what Talba, or Ms Wallis as he calls her, is all about, and his wife and daughter sort of stand on the side and laugh while this white man, who is a bit of a dinosaur, works at being non-racist and non-sexist.

Talba is sassy and smart, and not without her own problems. She has to try to figure out the right time to introduce her father's by-blow to Miz Clara, the mother she adores, without hurting either Janessa or Miz Clara. Families are significant here also. The relationships among Allyson and her three children, Talba and her boyfriend and mother and sister, Eddie and his wife and daughter, and Rashad and his mother and aunt . . . all are important

The other two titles in the series are LOUISIANA HOTSHOT and LOUISIANA BIGSHOT. Talba was introduced in the Skip Langdon book, 82 DESIRE.

Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, August 2004

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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