Description:
New Orleans police detective Skip Langdon is a tall, slightly overweight but still tough and resourceful cop who readers have come to know and love ever since New Orleans Mourning won an Edgar as Best First Mystery. The first time she meets Talba Wallis, Langdon has this impression: "A young, pretty African-American woman with gorgeous hair, large of butt and bust, stuffed into black jeans and a white T-shirt." But Talba is a lot more than meets the eye; she's a gifted poet known as the Baroness de Pontalba and a computer expert who gets involved in a couple of cases on which Skip is working. In particular, the disappearance of Russell Fortier, an oil company executive and husband of a city councilwoman. Talba did some computer searching in Fortier's office for a suddenly deceased private eye, and she may have a scoop on the case. But reporter Jane Storey, back in print after an unhappy foray into television news, is also in the Fortier investigation. In fact, she's being fed facts about Fortier by a mysterious source. In a city exploding with mystery series, Smith can still find something fresh to say, as in this comment about the cottage Talba shares with her mother: "They lived in the Ninth Ward between Desire and Piety, a metaphor she couldn't figure out how to use." Other Skip Langdon books available in paperback: The Axeman's Jazz, Crescent City Kill, House of Blues, Jazz Funeral, Kindness of Strangers, New Orleans Beat. --Dick Adler
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