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Chasing the Devil's Tail: A Mystery of Storyville, New Orleans. David Fulmer. Harcourt: 2003 (paperback). ISBN: 0156027283. 334 pages.
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The year is 1907. The setting is Storyville, the infamous red-light district of New Orleans, where you can buy cocaine over the counter, settle down with your rye whiskey to listen to a new music called Jazz, and spend a quality ten to fifteen minutes with one of the two thousand or so prostitutes that call the district home.
If you're thinking that your summer seems a bit tame by comparison, here's just the tantalizing little mystery that the doctor ordered. It seems that someone's got a nasty grudge against the ladies of the evening, as one after another of the workers in the world's oldest female profession turns up dead in her bed, clutching the killer's calling card, a faded black rose. Creole detective Valentin St. Cyr is the unwilling investigator, anxious to prove that Buddy Bolden, his best friend from childhood, is not to blame. But the original King of Jazz isn't making this case any easier, as his increasingly erratic behavior and intimate knowledge of each of the victims would suggest he's got something more than sweet tunes and easy times on his mind. Unless you're in a mystery book group, this novel probably isn't the choice for an in-depth discussion, but it's a great way to lose yourself in a richly textured page of the original Sin City's intricate past. As seen on Ellen on Seven.
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