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CITY OF THE DEAD
by Daniel Blake
Gallery Books, July 2012
416 pages
$25.00
ISBN: 1439197628


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

If the title character of a crime novel were going to be a city, then New Orleans would have to be the perfect choice. Not only does its name evoke heat, voodoo, raucous parades and cataclysm, but it also has notoriety for its endemic political corruption and dicey race relations. The city of New Orleans is the CITY OF THE DEAD in Daniel Blake's new mystery. Iconically, also, this tale takes place in the months and days before Hurricane Katrina changed everything.

The main human character is FBI agent Franco Patrese, freshly assigned to New Orleans from Pittsburgh. His status as the newcomer provides excellent opportunity for the author to supply exposition about the city and the way it is run. This could be considered a routine police procedural, but when more than one body is found with a chopped off leg next to a dead rattlesnake, and with an ax jutting out of a mirror pinned to the forehead, nothing can be quite normal. Also, Patrese seems to attract excitement of a sort. The book opens with him in Khao Lak, Thailand on the day after Christmas…the day of the tsunami. He survives, though not without great personal loss, and the same might be said for his condition at the end of the book when Hurricane Katrina hits the city. The description of what the city was like after this storm reads like an eye-witness account, and provides startling details about that event.

Before she died, the first victim, Cindy Rojciewicz, had made an appointment to speak to Patrese about something so secret that she could not tell anyone else. As the victims of this bizarre series of murders pile up, Patrese and his partner in the investigation, New Orleans police detective Selma Fawcett, try to uncover the connections between them. Were they all prostitutes? Women who had had abortions? People whose names began with certain letters? Selma's ex-husband Luther becomes a suspect, and we learn about his odd obsession with amputations. Selma and Franco begin a difficult and tension-filled relationship that adds another layer to the book's story. And then we have the background of the Vardens, rich industrialist father and governor son Junior, who are basically running the city. Hints of corruption are everywhere. Cindy had been Junior's assistant before her gruesome end.

This book contains non-stop action, but it is never over the top. Patrese is an intelligent and interesting character and remains a normal agent, never a super hero. His escapes from danger always seem plausible. Many possible suspects as well as a sinister and horrifying alternate theory about why New Orleans was flooded in the aftermath of the hurricane keep the reader engaged until the suspenseful conclusion.

§Anne Corey is a writer, poet, teacher and botanical artist in New York's Hudson Valley.

Reviewed by Anne Corey, July 2012

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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