Lastanza: New Orleans Police Stories - Hardcover

O'Neil De Noux

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1891643738 ISBN 13: 9781891643736

Publisher: Pontalba Pr, 1999

Synopsis

This collection of 17 stories mark the genesis and early development of Dino LaStanza, the hard-bitten, wise-cracking New Orleans police detective in O'Neil DeNoux's critically-acclaimed murder mystery/police story series. Besides LaStanza: New Orleans Police Stories, fans of LaStanza have also encountered him in previous novels like The Big Kiss, Grim Reaper, Blue Orleans, Crescent City Kills and The Big Show.

About this title

About the Author

No stranger to detective life, O'Neil De Noux is a former homicide detective and organized crime investigator in metro New Orleans. As a cop-turned-writer, DeNoux's novels and short stories are hyper-realistic stories of how, he says, "police officers really solve crimes. The horrific effect of crime on victims and the police officers who work the mean streets of a big city is sometimes too real."

As a police officer, DeNoux received seven commendations, primarily for solving difficult murder cases. In 1982, he was named Homicide Detectiv of the Year for the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office and was proclaimed an expert witness on homicide crime by the Criminal District Court of New Orleans.

Currently teaching mystery writing at the University of New Orleans, De Noux is the founding editor of Mystery Street and New Orleans Stories. His short stories have been published throughout the world in magazines ranging from OUI to ELLERY QUEEN MYSTERY MAGAZINE.

Reviews

DeNoux's series character, New Orleans homicide detective Dino LaStanza, is featured in a collection of gritty noir short stories. (The last novel in which LaStanza appeared was 1988's The Big Show.) Like his protagonist, DeNoux has been a New Orleans police detective, and his years of grim experience in a city with a soaring murder rate are reflected in these dark tales of life on the very mean streets. These stories are not only hardboiled: they are raunchy, violent and filled with obscenities. Each short narrative follows one of LaStanza's cases. The tales are unremittingly bleak: a beautiful young woman commits suicide; a jogger is attacked by a gang; an elderly woman is killed by random gunfire. Unfortunately, DeNoux's prose is labored and stiff, his characters are cardboard and his plots are thin and predictable. The best hard-boiled writing compresses powerful emotion into tight, minimalist prose. While these stories display plenty of tough attitude, there's not a lot of feeling in De Noux's choppy sentences. (Nov.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Pontalba Pr
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1891643738
• ISBN 13: 9781891643736
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 326