Chasing the Devil's Tail: A Valentin St. Cyr Mystery (Valentin St. Cyr Mysteries) - Hardcover

Fulmer, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1890208841 ISBN 13: 9781890208844

Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press, 2001

Synopsis

Not New Orleans—but Storyville—noir...and all that jazz!
1907 Storyville. Cultures, races, and religions more often blend than clash in a rich gumbo only New Orleans could serve up. But trouble brews. In this red light district, prostitutes ply their trade whether in cramped cribs or elegant houses of French ancestry, while music surges through its streets and helps harmonize the light and dark elements. King Bolden rules the Storyville brass with his golden coronet and his gift—jasser—to blow a riff on the city’s music that pulses with new rhythms and notes. But the real King of Storyville is Tom Anderson, the district’s powerful property owner and political fixer, who employs Creole detective Valentin St. Cyr to dig into the deaths of a string of prostitutes. Each victim is found with a black rose. Is a serial killer leaving a calling card? Is King Bolden losing his mind as he stretches his genius to its limits? Why is an elderly priest sent away under care?

“This brilliant debut noir captures a time and place so perfectly the reader will resent each time he has to lay it aside....”

—Barbara Peters

About this title

From the Back Cover

Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist: Mystery/Thriller
A Booklist Best First Mystery Series
"A beautifully constructed, elegantly presented time trip to a New Orleans of the very early 1900s...." --Los Angeles Times

Storyville, 1907: In this raucous red-light district, where two thousand scarlet women ply their trade, where cocaine and opium are sold over the counter, and where rye whiskey flows freely, there's a killer loose. Someone is murdering Storyville prostitutes and marking each killing with a black rose.
As Creole detective Valentin St. Cyr begins to unravel the murder against this extraordinary backdrop, he encounters a cast of characters drawn from history: Tom Anderson, the political boss who runs Storyville like a private kingdom; Lulu White, the district's most notorious madam; E.J. Bellocq, the crippled dwarf and photographer of whores; a young piano player who would later be known as Jelly Roll Morton; and finally, Buddy Bolden, the man who all but invented jazz and is now losing his mind.
An original tale of murder, music, and madness, Chasing the Devil's Tail is a chilling portrait of genius and self-destruction, set at the very moment when jazz was born.
"A wonderful rendition of a particular world at a very distinctive time." --The Times-Picayune (New Orleans)

"Captures Storyville in all its creative, mystical and sordid excess." --The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
David Fulmer, a writer and producer, lives in Atlanta with his daughter, Italia. Chasing the Devil's Tail is his first novel.

About the Author

David Fulmer has written about blues, jazz and other subjects for The Atlanta Journal & Consitution, Atlanta Magazine, Southline, National Public Radio, The All-Music Guide and Blues Access. He wrote and produced the documentary Blind Willie’s Blues. Video Librarian called the film “nothing less than the economic, social, and historical evolution of America’s indigenous music,” and it earned him a nomination for a W.C. Handy Keeping the Blues Alive Award. He has worked as a welder, bartender, musician and teacher, and spent ten years in the motorsports industry, which included driving in SCCA competition. A native of Pennsylvania, he lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with his daughter Italia.

Edition details

• Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1890208841
• ISBN 13: 9781890208844
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 226