Louisiana Hotshot, by Julie Smith (2001)

Louisiana Hotshot, by Julie Smith (2001)

If you're looking for mysteries that take place in New Orleans, Louisiana, check out the Talba Wallis/Baroness Pontalba series.

Here's the info from the jacket:

Edgar Award winner Julie Smith returns to the bewitching streets of New Orleans with the smartest, sassiest, hippest street detective ever-the Baroness Pontalba.

Meet the snazziest P.I. in the land. Not by accident does she roam America's jazziest city, New Orleans. By day she is Talba Wallis, smart, sassy, ebony, and a fledgling detective. By night she is the Baroness Pontalba, poet laureate of the city's smoky rooms, matron saint of her town's exotic and multi-colored cafe society.

Goaded into a day gig by her pushy mom, she finds herself employed by Eddie Valentino, a crusty old detective who thinks he doesn't like anyone young, female or black. He also doesn't realize his life is unravelling.

Taking up the slack, Talba is plunged into a world of fame, money and power run amok, hunting a man who seduces teenage black girls and may be making them disappear.

At the same time she is haunted by disturbing near-memories, but the more she pursues them, the more the roadblocks go up. Her forgotten past only emerges when violence enters her life-but not, she learns, for the first time.

Abut the author
Julie Smith is a former reporter and tbhe author of 15 mystery novels. New Orleans Mourning, the first in the Skip Langdon series, won the Edgar for best novel. Ms. Smith lives in the Faubourg Marigny section of New Orleans.

http://www.juiliesmithauthor.com