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

Dead March, by Ann McMillan

Here's the description from Amazon:

Narcissa Powers, a young Virginia widow consigned to a dismal existence in the country home of her sister-in-law, receives an urgent summons from family friends of her beloved brother, Charley.

Shortly after she rushes to his side, he dies of a disease that should have caused only a minor infection. The mystery of his death is compounded when Narcissa finds a fragment of a half-burned letter from Charley that someone has hidden in her Bible. Wanting to do right by her brother and avoid returning to the doldrums of her country existence, Narcissa plunges into the turmoil of Richmond in the days between Fort Sumter and the first great battle of the Civil War.

A colorful collection of plausible characters gather in the parlors and back alleys of Richmond--a British journalist, a dashing but arrogant young doctor, a cruel overseer, and Judah Daniel, a freedwoman who is also the local herbalist and "conjure woman." Each will be a part of the eventual unraveling of the mystery.

Sample paragraphs

"Mrs. Powers, I am so glad that you have come. Your dear brother...I hope that he will know you...I pray that your visit will do him some good." Mrs. Hughes seemed to be near tears. Narcissa felt the shock of her words and leaned for a moment on her supporting arm.

They went in through the open door. Narcissa had a vague impression of the inside of the house as elegant, formal, with dark, polished wood and rich, red-toned brocades. Mrs. Hughes and her maidservant were thoughtful, quickly and quietly helping Narcissa remove her traveling clothes and seeing to her luggage. She was led into the other half of the double house, then down a hallway tiled with squares of rose and gray stone, uncarpeted. They passed a book-lined office, then came to a door that stood ajar.

Rachel Hughes stopped. Rather than rudely pull away from the woman's grasp on her arm, Narcissa halted as well, though she wanted nothing save to get through that door to Charley.

"I can hardly bear to tell you..." Rachel Hughes spoke hesitantly. "They thought it best to amputate his left arm. My husband can tell you more; I will send at once to let him know you are here."

Narcissa could not take in the meaning of her words. She could see in her mind's eye Charley's hands, strong to rein in a runaway horse, gentle to bandage a hurt kitten. He was going to be a doctor; he would need both his hands.

Ann McMillan has written three Civil War era mysteries featuring white American Narcissa Powers, black American Judah Daniel, and British correspondent Brit Wallace.

Dead March - first in series
Angel Trumpet
Civil Blood
Chickahominy Fever
Castle Thunder (Kindle edition)

Track of the Cat, by Nevada Barr

Track of the Cat, by Nevada Barr, is the first in a series of park ranger Anna Pigeon mysteries. In many ways, Barr is the Dick Francis of the American mystery novel. All of Francis' books had something to do with horses, and all of them had a hero who, the final chapter, was invariably beat up or had to fight for his life against overwhelming odds before coming out triumphant.

Such is the case with Anna Pigeon. No pampered city woman, detecting from her bed and breakfast, antique gallery, or catering firm. No, she's an outdoorswoman, who strides confidently in her milieu, with the strength of body and of will to defeat the powerful villains who commit murder in a National Park anywhere near her.

In Track of the Cat, we first get to know Anna. She prefers animals and the outdoors to people and civilization. She drinks too much, to dull the pain from the loss of her husband, who had died in a traffic accident years before. She also has a sister, whom we only ever hear on the phone, who is also a psychiatrist. But mostly there's Anna...and why she hasn't been given a TV series of her own sometime in the last 20 years boggles the mind!

In Track of the Cat, the park service is attempting to introduce the endangered mountain lion back into the park. However, the program is jeopardized when Anna finds the body of a fellow park ranger, ostensibly killed by a mountain lion. As hunters fan out to get the man-eater, Anna tries desperately to prove that the villain they're looking for is a two-legged one.

Sample paragraphs:

Anna fished teo of the soggy lemon slices from her water bottle, mashed them to a pulp, and rubbed the pulp into her wet handkerchief. Tying it over her mouth and nose, she fervently hoped it would cut the stench of death down to a tolerable level.

Next she took the camera she'd been using on the lion transect and hung it around her neck. Switching on the headlamp, though it was not yet dark enough to do her much good, she waded into the saw grass.

The camera helped. It gave her distance. Through its lens she was able to see more clearly. Sheila Drury was parcelled out into photographic units. As sheclicked, Anna made mental notes: no scrapes, no bruises, no twisted limbs. Drury probably hadn't fallen.

Track of the Cat --Guadalupe Mountains National Park (1993)
A Superior Death --Isle Royale National Park (1994)
Ill Wind --Mesa Verde National Park (1995)
Firestorm --Lassen Volcanic National Park (1996)
Endangered Species --Cumberland Island National Seashore (1997)
Blind Descent --Carlsbad Caverns National Park (1998)
Liberty Falling --Statue of Liberty National Monument (1999)
Deep South --Natchez Trace Parkway (2000)
Blood Lure --Glacier National Park (2001)
Hunting Season --Natchez Trace Parkway February (2002)
Flashback --Dry Tortugas National Park February (2003)
High Country --Yosemite National Park February (2004)
Hard Truth --Rocky Mountain National Park March (2005)
Winter Study --Isle Royale National Park April (2008)
Borderline --Big Bend National Park April (2009)

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about Nevada Barr:

Nevada Barr (born March 1, 1952, Yerington, Nevada) is an American author best known for her Anna Pigeon series of mystery novels set in national parks in the United States. Barr won an Agatha Award and Anthony Award for best first novel for Track of the Cat. She lives in New Orleans.

Although Barr was born in Nevada, she was named not after her state of birth but after a character in one of her father’s favorite books.[Interestingly, neither Wikipedia nor the source from which they got this information bothers to give the title of the book. Wouldn't they think fans of Barr would want to knwo that, also?]

She grew up in Johnstonville, California, and finished college at the University of California, Irvine. With a masters degree in drama, she pursued a career in theater,TV, films, commercials and voice work for almost two decades. When her then-director husband changed careers and became interested in the environmental movement she began working as a seasonal park ranger in the summer.

Barr created the Anna Pigeon series while working at her second seasonal job in Guadalupe Mountains National Park,Texas. Pigeon is a law enforcement ranger with the United States National Park Service. The books in the series take place in various national parks, where Pigeon solves murders that are often related to natural resource issues.

Barr's first permanent Park Ranger job was on the Natchez Trace Parkway in Mississippi. She resigned to focus on writing when her books began to achieve commercial success.

Beginning With A Bash, by Phoebe Atwood Taylor

Beginning With A Bash is the first Leonidas Witherall novel, for all that it didn't appear in the United States until 1972.

It started life as a novella, "The Problem of Volume 4" in the first issue of a short-lived mystery magazine edited by by Ellery Queen (Manfred Lee and Frederic Dannay), Mystery League Magazine, in November 1931. In 1936 Taylor wrote to her publisher asking if it could not be published as a novel, as she desperately needed the money. (This was the height of the Depression, and even though her Asey Mayo novels were selling well, taxes on her property were going up.)

Her publisher advised against it. If she had two books coming out in the same year, her audience might believe she was sacrificing quality for quantity. Also, since it had already appeared in print previously, "the Federal Trade Commission" might get involved.

So, although Beginning With a Bash was published in England in 1937, it was not published in the States until 1972. (Taylor would die four years later, at the age of 67.) Phoebe Atwood Taylor wrote at least a book a year from 1931 (her first Asey Mayo mystery) to 1947, with a final novel appearing in 1951.

I prefer Taylor's Leonidas Witherall mysteries (written under the ALice TIlton pseudonym) to her Asey Mayo books. Here's how a writer at Wikipedia describes them:

Leonidas Witherall ("the man who looks like Shakespeare"), once an instructor at a private boys' school, has lost all of his money due to the Wall Street crash of 1929, and takes to anonymously writing books and, later, a radio show about the adventures of "Lieutenant Hazeltine" as a means of survival, while solving murders as a sideline. In the eight novels chronicling his adventures, Witherall is confronted with a corpse under unusual and maximally embarrassing circumstances that suggest his own guilt, requiring him to enlist a motley crew of assistants, use disguise and impersonation to escape discovery, and engage in at least one scavenger-hunt-like chase before solving the crime. Once in every novel, Witherall references the radio program's constant repetition of "Cannae" -- an ancient battle from which Hazeltine draws inspiration so that his smaller force defeats his larger mass of enemies. This mention of Cannae means that Witherall is about to marshal his assistants as part of a clever scheme to deliver the murderer to justice. Hazeltine is also subject to the machinations of the "octopus of fate", by which an incredible coincidence is explained at least once in every Witherall novel. In 1944, the character was adapted into a Mutual radio mystery program, The Adventures of Leonidas Witherall.

Mystery critic Dilys Winn had this to say about the Witherall novels: "These books don't make all that much sense, but they go a long way in proving that making sense is immaterial -- a guffaw is more vital. Tilton books are so busy, so complicated, so Marx Brothers ... that makes them sound as if they might have a plot, doesn't it? Bad assumption. They drift from incident to incident with the style of the crash 'em cars at a carnival."[1] Mystery writer and critic H. R. F. Keating wrote, in an introduction to a 1987 reissue of the first Witherall novel, "If a writer can keep in play an interest in a crime of some sort, preferably indeed murder, and at the same time induce the reader to take the hither-and-thither balloon flight of farce, then the entertainment provided will be not doubled but tripled. But it is difficult. I suspect that the only recipe for success is sheer deftness in writing, coupled perhaps with establishing a firm basis in fact before the hilarious fantasy is allowed to take off. Both these elements Alice Tilton has at her disposal.

Although Witherall looks like Bill Shakespeare in this first installment, the rest of the familiar trappings have not been introduced. It is not until The Cut Direct that Witherall has started writing the Haseltine books, and using the Cannae solution to solve every problem.

For that reason, Beginning With A Bash is my least favorite Witherall novel, but still a fun book. The solution is a bit... unbelievable...but if you suspend your disbelief, you'll enjoy it.

A few paragraphs:

Leonidas twirled his pince-nez on their broad black ribbon, and Dot, with terror in her eyes, watched Martin's drawn face.

Martin cleared his throat. "I didn't do it. He--he was dead when I went back there!"

"Are you quite sure the man is dead, Martin?"

"Positive, sir. I looked at him. And I've spent hours--well, it seemed like hours though I s'pose it was only a few minutes--wondering whether to bolt or not. But I decided it would only make matters worse."

"Why should you bolt?" Dot demanded.

"Why? My God, why? I didn't think that anything more could happen, but here it is. Bill Shakespeare, what'll I do? I've fussed around and cursed North and talked about bashing him ever since I was first arrested. Now--whoops! Grand larceny, vagrancy, theft---and now murder! I didn't do any of 'em! I didn't do this. But no one'll ever believe me!"

"But who could have done it?" Dot looked dazedly around the store as though she expected to find the murderer on the ceiling or between the pages of a book.

The Secret Adversary, by Agatha Christie

There are many "firsts" in my life that I don't remember. I have always regretted not keeping a journal from the time I was young, keeping track of the first time I met people, the first time I read this book or saw that movie, first time I got a job, and so on.

There are two firsts that I do remember.

The very first play I ever saw was Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap. I was about 11 years old. It was 1971, and there was a draught in Zambia or some other African country. The cargo firm for which my father worked was hired to fly food from Botswana to Zamia. THe job was to last for at least a year. My dad decided to take advantage of the tax breaks offered to those whose whole families lived overseas for a year, so he took my mom and two siblings with him, and we moved to Johannesburg, South Africa. The flight took us via London, England, and while there, we went to see The Mousetrap. First play, first mystery play, first crush on an actor. (I liked the guy who played Detective Sargeant Trotter.)

In Johannesburg, we rented a furnished house from a couple, and on their bookshelves was The Secret Adversary. I might not have picked it up if I'd never seen The Mousetrap, but I was familiar with the name Agatha Christie, so I did, and loved it. It was the first "grown up" book I ever read, the first "grown up" mystery, and the first book of Agatha Christie's that I ever read.

I have been a fan of Agatha Christie's ever since. Of course, even though there's a special place in my heart for Christie, I am not blind to her faults. And I don't care for the last few books she wrote, they definitely suffer in quality. But when she was in her prime....

Agatha Christie's books can be divided into two main sections - her detective novels, featuring Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple, and her adventure thrillers, featuring, usually, independent heroines or young couples.

The Secret Adversary, published in 1922, was Christie's second book published, after The Mysterious Affair at Styles, which was a detective story featuring Hercule Poirot.

Tommy Beresford served in the Army and was demobbed (demobilized) with few prospects. Tuppence Beresford served as a nurse during the war, and is also at a loose end. They meet accidently, rekindle their friendship, and discuss their difficulties in finding work. They decide to form their own business - Young Adventurers Ltd, and put an ad in the newspaper seeking informaton on someone called Jane Finn. Tuppence had overhead two other people talking about someone with that name, and wondering where she was. So she and Tommy decide to be proactive in what they hope will be their first case.

But they get more than they bargain for. Jane Finn disappeared after the sinking of the Lusitania, entrusted with a treaty that at the time - during WWI - made since, but now if its terms were known could cause another war, but not with Germany, and the British government and various nefarious parties have been searching for her, and that treaty, ever since.

The Secret Adversary is, to put it plainly, just a lot of fun. It's hardly dated at all, for all that' its over 80 years old. Secret treaties with terms that can backfire are certainly plausible, the characters are engaging, and the mystery fast moving. There are of course no computers, no cellphones, no TVs, in that it's a simpler time.

That's another reason why I like to read these early books of Agatha Christie. The author is at the height of her powers, but we also get insights into how people lived (at least, a certain social segment of it) way back in the 1920s.

Christie used the Tommy and Tuppence characters several more times. I also recommend Partners in Crime, which is an anthology of short stories, in which Tommy, with Tuppence's assistance, solves various mysteries using methods of other top detectives of the day (the 1920s day) such as Holmes, Reggie Fortune, the Thinkng Machine, and so on. N or M, which takes place during World War II, is also well done.

After that, the series falls off, in my opinion. Unlike Poiror and Miss Marple, who never age in the 60 years of their existence, Tommy and Tuppence do, and by By the Pricking of My Thumbs (written 20 years after N or M?) they are old, Tuppence is matronly, Albert's (their young, intelligent servant) brains have atrophied (he is now more comic relief than anything) and the fun has rather gone out of the series.

But, they had a good run.

As for purchasing details, the book is still in print and can be purchased via Amazon.com if not in your local bookstore. If Amazon.com is to be believed, you can also get it for free from Kindle.

Fellowship of Fear, by Aaron Elkins

Fellowship of Fear, by Aaron Elkins, is the very first Gideon Oliver mystery, and it is atypical of the series. It is more of a spy novel than a detective novel.



Gideon's past history is introduced, including the death of a beloved spouse. He comes to Germany as a guest-lecturer at Army Air Bases in Germany...only a lot of people seem to think he's much more... like a spy.

Here are a few sample paragraphs:

Gideon Oliver was not a conventionally handsome man, and he knew it. He also knew that his big frame, broken nose, and soft borwn eyes gave him a gentle ruggedness that many women found attractive.

He was by no means on the prowl. His wife of nine years, whom he had loved wthi all his soul, had died in an automobile accident two years earlier, and just as he had found no one to compare with her when she was alive, he had found no one since, and he wasn't even looking hard. Still, even if not overtly susceptible to women, he was by no means immune, and felt, through the wine-induced lassitude, a familiar stirring whenever Janet rearranged her long legs and looked briefly at him wiht unmistakeably friendly intent.

The other two at the table had contributed less to the evening's pleasures. Bruce Danzig, the faculty librarian, was a fussy little man with fussy little hands and feet and a neat little lump of a pot belly - like a cantaloupe - across the exact center of which his belt lay. He delivered his words with irritating precision, pursing and stretching his lips lest a single phoneme emerge incompletely rounded.

On Gideon's other side, between him and Janet, saw Eric Bozzini, assistant professor of psychology. Three times during the meal he described himself as a laid-back Californian, and groomed himself for the part: long hair, neatly trimmed into a sort of boy cut below the ears, a Pancho Villa mustache, tinted glasses that never seemed to come off, and an open-throated shirt revealing some sort of canine attached to a thin, gold chain and nestling on a tanned, hairy chest. But at something near Gideon's own age of thirty-eight, the image was wearing a little thing; a widow's peak was discernible under the brushed forward hairline, the face was a little fleshy, the chest a trifle puffy and soft-looking. Even the bronze skin seemed sunlamp induced.

The series
Fellowship of Fear (1982)
The Dark Place (1983)
Murder in the Queen's Armes (1985)
Old Bones (1987)
Curses! (1989)
Icy Clutches (1990)
Make No Bones (1991)
Dead Men's Hearts (1994)
Twenty Blue Devils (1997)
Skeleton Dance (2000)
Good Blood (2004)
Where There's a Will (2005)
Unnatural Selection (2006)
Little Tiny Teeth (2007)
Uneasy Relations (2008)
Skull Duggery (2009)