In The Spotlight: Julie Smith’s Louisiana Bigshot

Hello, All,

Welcome to another edition of In The Spotlight. As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, a strong sense of place can add a great deal to a novel or series. In fact, most readers I know want their stories to ‘place’ them in a particular setting; it gives the story a sense of authenticity. To show you what I mean, let’s take a closer look at Julie Smith’s Talba Wallis series, which takes place in New Orleans. Let’s turn the spotlight on Louisiana Bigshot, the second in the series.

Talba Wallis is a private investigator and poet who divides her time between her work, her poetry and her boyfriend Darryl Boucree. She works for Eddie Valentino, who owns E.V. Anthony Investigations. One day Wallis gets a visit from her friend and fellow poet Clayton Robineau, a bodyworker/therapist who goes by the name of Babalu Maya. Babalu wants to hire Wallis to find out whether her fiancé Jason Wheelock is cheating on her. Wallis doesn’t want to break her friend’s heart if Wheelock is cheating, and she’s learned that sometimes knowing the truth is devastating. She would rather Babalu simply break up with her fiancé then have to deal with ‘the dirty details.’ But she agrees to take the job and before long, she finds out that Babalu’s suspicions are justified.

Shortly after Wallis breaks the bad news to her friend, Babalu dies of what looks like a self-induced heroin overdose. The police want to close the case as a suicide but Wallis doesn’t think that’s true. Babalu had a somewhat self-destructive past, but she’d gotten her life together and was positive about the future. Wallis doubts very much that someone who was getting stronger and was optimistic would have committed suicide. Then she gets a visit from Jason Wheelock. Wheelock says that everyone blames him for his fiancée’s death. He doesn’t believe Babalu killed herself either and he hires Wallis to find out the truth about her death. In part he wants to clear his name and in part he wants answers.

Soon enough, Wallis finds that this case is more complex than she thought. For one thing, no-one in the victim’s family wants to talk to her. At first she thinks it’s because it was she who found out the information about Wheelock’s infidelity. But it’s not long before she learns that she’s being ‘frozen out’ for quite different reasons. She does learn though that a tragic event in Babalu’s past may be the key to everything. But very few people connected with what happened will speak to Wallis. And she’s fairly certain that those who are willing to talk are not telling everything they know. The calculated silence convinces Wallis that she’s dealing with a murder and she’s proven right. Babalu’s death turns out to be related to her past and to people who are desperate to protect a reputation.

In the meantime, Wallis has learned a shocking fact about her own past. On the one hand, she knows that she needs to follow up on it and learn more about her own history. On the other, she’s afraid, if I can put it this way, of what she might find, and not exactly eager to confront the truth. But as the novel goes on, she searches for answers. In the end, and with help from Boucree, her work-mates at E.V. Anthony and some friends, Wallis finds out the truth about Babalu’s death and her own past.

As I mentioned, this story has a strong sense of place. In part that sense of place comes from physical descriptions:

 

‘Jason lived in the area of town referred to as the Lower Garden District, not to be even slightly confused with the Garden District proper, which was very proper indeed. The lower version was hip, upwardly mobile, mixed in just about every way, and a little dicey – actually a by-the-numbers neighborhood for an unemployed actor. It offered good deals if you didn’t mind watching your back.’

 

Smith also places the reader in New Orleans in other ways. The dialogue, the customs, the religion, the manners and so on all reflect the city’s culture. In fact, when we learn the motive for the murder we see that it too fits in with the area’s culture.

Another element that is clear in this novel is the character of Talba Wallis. She’s

 

‘…not merely African-American but black. Good and black, thank you very much.’

 

Her race plays an important role in Wallis’ outlook on life. She doesn’t automatically hate or even resent all White people. She has White friends, a White boss and mixes with Whites without automatically assuming the worst. But racism is a part of life in parts of New Orleans and she’s felt it too often. Her feelings about it come through in her poetry, which is another essential part of her character. There are several examples of her poetry in the novel and they tell a lot about how she views life.

Racism and classism (and not just among Whites) are critical elements in this novel. It turns out that Babalu is from one of the ‘better’ families in New Orleans and Wallis is already at a real disadvantage in speaking with them when she learns that they live in Clayton, in an area where only wealthy Whites live. In fact at one point she’s in Clayton waiting in her car to speak with an old friend of Babalu when she’s arrested on trumped-up charges but mostly because she’s Black. The charge is sometimes referred to DWB (Driving While Black) and it’s a sad reality of life in some places. But Wallis uses the racism if you will to her own advantage. When she discovers that none of the White people in Babalu’s family will speak to her, she decides to concentrate on the household staff and their friends, all of whom are Black. As she suspects, the wealthy Whites talk openly in front of their staff as though they were invisible, so Wallis learns a lot. She learns a lot too from Babalu’s old high school friends, some of whom are also Black.

This is a PI novel, so another important element in it is a ‘behind the scenes’ look at the way private investigators go about their work. Wallis spends her share of time waiting in cars, taking ‘photos, doing background checks and so on. The life of a PI is not painted as action-packed or glamourous, although I think I can say without spoiling the story that there’s a car chase in it. Instead, Smith gives a more day-to-day look at what private investigation companies do, who hires them and how they get answers.

In some ways, this is a sad novel. Wallis finds out the truth about Babalu’s murder and her own past, but that doesn’t ‘set the world right again.’ And the racism and classism that we see in the story don’t go away. They’re there and those affected are quite open about the injustice. But it’s not an entirely bleak novel. There are moments of optimism in the story and there’s also a sarcastic sense of humour. Here for instance is what Wallis tells Babalu about part of the process of hiring E.V. Anthony Investigations:

 

‘We have this instrument of torture Eddie invented to scare away customers, called the intake interview. If you can survive it, you might as well marry the guy [Jason Wheelock], because that proves you can handle anything.’

 

The dashes of humour are part of what keep the story moving.

The story is told partly from Wallis’ point of view and partly from Eddie’s so readers who prefer only one perspective will be disappointed. But it’s clear who’s doing, thinking and saying what; Smith doesn’t leave the reader (at least not this one) confused.  Ant on another note, fans of Julie Smith’s sleuth Skip Langdon (who has her own series) will be pleased to know that she makes an appearance here.

Louisiana Bigshot is a believable PI mystery with a thread of humour and a unique sleuth who fits into the New Orleans setting and context. The characters, the plot and the solution are all reflections of life in The Big Easy. But what’s your view? Have you read Louisiana Bigshot? If you have, what elements do you see in it?

 
 

 

Coming Up On In The Spotlight

 

Monday 11 February/Tuesday 12 February – The Coroner’s Lunch – Colin Cotterill

Monday 18 February/Tuesday 19 February – Unexpected Night – Elizabeth Daly

Monday 25 February/Tuesday 26 February – Full Dark House – Christopher Fowler

My Eyes Can Dimly See the Pattern of My Life*

Did you ever catch yourself in a pattern you hadn’t even been aware you had? We often have a patterned reaction to life because it’s easy, or it’s comfortable and familiar, or perhaps because it’s served an important purpose. And we get so accustomed to our patterns that we often aren’t even conscious that we have them. But sometimes our comfortable patterns don’t work any more. When that happens we have to learn to deal with life in new ways. And that can help us grow. It can also add some interest to fictional characters as they see that the same way they’ve always dealt with life doesn’t always work.

Sometimes of course, patterns of dealing with life can be dangerous. For instance, in Agatha Christie’s Murder in Mesopotamia we meet Louise Leidner. She’s the wife of prominent archaeologist Eric Leidner and she’s accompanied him on an important dig a few hours from Baghdad. The team hasn’t been at the site long when Louise begins to have what many people call irrational fears. She says that she hears hands tapping on windows and sees grotesque faces looking in at her. Her husband hires a nurse Amy Leatheran to look after his wife and she learns that Louise fears for her life. She’s been receiving threatening letters that seem to come from her first husband, who she thought was dead. Then one afternoon Louise is bludgeoned to death. Hercule Poirot is in the area and is persuaded to investigate. He’s soon faced with several questions about the murder. Was the victim really killed by her former husband? If not, were the letters a blind? Did she write them herself in order to create drama? As Poirot sorts the case out we learn that there were several patterns to Louise Leidner’s life. Her interactions with people followed those particular patterns and in part that’s what led to her death.

Robert B. Parker’s Jesse Stone has had his share of damage in his life. And one of the patterns he’s used to cope with it is that he stays at least somewhat withdrawn in relationships. In some ways that’s been a successful strategy for him. His way of distancing himself makes it easier to do the hard things that cops have to do. For instance, in Night Passage, the first in Parker’s Jesse Stone series, Stone is hired as the new police chief in Paradise, Massachusetts. He thinks it will be a good chance to start life over. Having lost both his job with the L.A.P.D. and his marriage, Stone is looking for a new beginning. But he soon finds that being a cop in Paradise is anything but an easy job. It turns out that Stone was hired because the town’s leaders thought he’d be easy to manipulate. When Stone uncovers what’s going on, he needs his ability to ‘step back’ and not trust anyone as he finds out the truth. On the other hand, that pattern isn’t so useful in his personal life. It’s part of the reason for the breakup of his marriage and as the series goes on, we see how more than once, Stone’s pattern of withdrawal gets in the way of really sustaining a strong relationship.

Kerry Greenwood’s Corinna Chapman has a negative relationship with her parents for several good reasons. While she’s not obsessive about it, she also has no interest whatsoever in any contact with them. As she sees it, she has a good life (she has her own bakery, a good relationship with her lover Daniel Cohen, and a good circle of friends). But it’s all no thanks to her parents. Then, in Devil’s Food, Chapman’s mother suddenly shows up in her life. Chapman’s father has disappeared and her mother wants Chapman’s help finding him. Chapman’s first reaction is to follow the pattern that has so far served her well: avoidance. But she soon learns that avoidance isn’t going to work this time as her mother intends to stay in the area until her father is found. What’s more, one of the other residents of the building where Chapman lives and works offers to take her mother in for the time being. With few other options Chapman grudgingly begins to help in the search for her father. Bit by bit she develops a sort of détente with her mother. She also learns what’s happened to her father. At the end of the story, Chapman isn’t exactly ‘best buddies’ with her mother but she’s been able to re-think the pattern of simply avoiding any contact at all cost.

In Paddy Richardson’s Hunting Blind, beginning psychiatrist Stephanie Anderson has to re-think several patterns in her life. When she was fourteen, her younger sister Gemma was abducted. No trace of the child was ever found despite a massive hunt. Gemma’s loss devastated the family and is partly responsible for Anderson’s pattern of withdrawing from people – of not allowing herself to get close to them. In a lot of ways she’s aware of that pattern but for her it’s been a useful coping technique. She’s able to work with her patients because she doesn’t allow herself to get close. She can’t really face her own pain and sense of loss at Gemma’s disappearance so withdrawing helps her get through life without hurting too much or drowning herself in alcohol. For Anderson it’s not a bad pattern although it has cost her at least one serious relationship. Then she begins to work with a new patient Elizabeth Clark. Clark is still suffering the trauma of losing her own younger sister Gracie, who was, like Anderson’s sister, abducted. When Anderson hears Clark’s story she decides to lay her old ghosts to rest and find out who was responsible for both abductions. To do that she has to take several emotional risks and face the difficulty of getting close to some of the members of her family again as well as getting closer to Clark than professional ethics would normally dictate. But Anderson has found that her pattern of staying removed from people simply won’t work any more. As she slowly finds out the truth about what happened to her sister, she also learns some new ways of dealing with life.

Håkan Nesser’s Intendant Münster has a pattern of relying on his boss Inspector Van Veeteren. That pattern makes sense for a lot of reasons. After all, Van Veeteren is the boss. Besides, he has real intuition for detection and an awful lot of skill. Münster is neither stupid nor lacking in insight. But he’s fallen into a pattern of discussing cases with his boss, getting Van Veeteren’s views, insights and so on and going from there. But then Münster has to re-think his patterns, at least to some extent. Van Veeteren leaves the police force and becomes an owner of a bookshop, which is something he’s wanted to do for a long time. So in The Unlucky Lottery (AKA Münster’s Fall/ Münster’s Case), Münster has to take on the murder of Waldemar Leverkuhn himself. He certainly works with a team, and as I say, he’s no mental slouch. But it’s obvious that he has gotten used to depending on Van Veeteren. And what’s interesting is that Van Veeteren has gotten used to it and to detection too. A few times during this novel he and Münster discuss the case, and he gives Münster some valuable perspective.

And then there’s Julie Smith’s Louisiana Bighot which features New Orleans PI Talba Wallis. Wallis works for E.V. Anthony Investigations when she’s not writing poetry and doing readings. When Wallis is hired to find out whether her friend Babalu Maya’s fiancé Jason is cheating, Wallis has no idea that this case is going to lead to murder, corruption and more. When Wallis doesn’t want to deal with something difficult, even she admits that she ‘turtles,’ or goes into her proverbial shell. She avoids unpleasant confrontations if she can and drags her feet as the saying goes. And she tends to freeze up emotionally when she can’t avoid a confrontation. We see that for instance when she has to tell Babalu that Jason has been unfaithful. We see it again when Babalu is murdered and Jason is accused of the crime. It’s a lot more complicated though than a case of an angry fiancé who kills the woman he’s supposedly going to marry. Throughout the novel, as Wallis deals with the various threads of this case, she has to force herself not to rely on ‘turtling’ to get her through. But as we learn a little about her backstory, we also see why she has that pattern. It’s not an irrational way to deal with life, but it doesn’t work in this case.

And that’s the thing about a lot of the patterns we develop. It’s not that they’re necessarily bad or wrong. They may in fact be very useful. But sometimes, our comfortable familiar patterns don’t serve our purpose. And that’s when we find out what we’re capable of learning.

 

 

 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Simon and Garfunkel’s Patterns.

 

Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans?*

If you’ve ever been to New Orleans then you know that it’s a distinctive place. It’s a mixture of old Southern wealth, new money and wrenching poverty. It’s also one of the most fascinating mixtures of cultures, ethnic groups and language backgrounds I’ve ever experienced. And music? The city moves to music – really. New Orleans also has some of the most delicious food there is and you can find it even in little hole-in-the-wall restaurants. It’s got an interesting history too. But what makes New Orleans so special (at least to me) is that it is a very “alive” city. There is a rich enjoyment of life there that makes it truly vibrant. It’s also a really intriguing setting for crime fiction. Not only is there as I said a mix of different socioeconomic and other backgrounds but New Orleans has had more than its share of drugs gangs, racial tension, corruption and other problems. It’s not a perfect place. But it is unique.

There are several series that are set in New Orleans. Julie Smith’s Skip Langdon series is just one of them. Langdon is a former member of New Orleans’ upper crust who turned “rebel” and became a cop. In New Orleans Mourning for instance (the first Skip Langdon mystery), she investigates the murder of wealthy magnate Chauncy St. Amant who is shot during Mardi Gras. Langdon is a rookie who’s assigned to this case because it’s assumed that she’s in with the social elite. The truth is that Langdon has never felt like one of the “beautiful people” although she went to the “right schools” and her parents have spent their lives climbing the social ladder. Still, she does have contacts in that world and she uses them to solve this murder. Like several of the novels in this series this one features a lot of dark family secrets..

James Sallis’ Lew Griffin is a former private investigator turned writer and part-time professor. In The Long-Legged Fly we learn of Griffin’s career as a full-time private investigator and some of the wrenching cases he took. By the time Moth, the second Lew Griffin novel, takes place, Griffin has retired from full-time detection and has taken up an academic career. But the pull of a former friendship draws him back into the business. The Lew Griffin novels often feature a search for missing children and Griffin’s determination to find them before anything happens to them. They also show a much seedier side of New Orleans than we see in Smith’s novels. Sallis’ novels are what you might call a literary look at the life of a New Orleans PI who began his career during the 1960′s when being a black PI was even more dangerous than it is now. Readers who prefer more or less chronological timelines should be aware that this series goes back and forth between the past and the present as we follow Griffin’s career. But each section of each novel is clearly set off so it’s not difficult to know when a part of the story is taking place. And this series shows quite a lot of New Orleans that the tourists don’t get to see.

Crime fiction fans will already know that a lot of James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux novels are set in and near New Orleans. Robicheaux is a former New Orleans cop who ended up working for the New Iberia, Louisiana police. But he still has lots of frieds and contacts in New Orleans. For instance The Tin Roof Blowdown is in part the story of one of those friends. In that novel, one thread of the plot is Robicheaux’s search for his former friend Jude Le Blanc, who became a Roman Catholic priest. The novel takes place in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and thousands of people are stranded. Le Blanc disappears and is presumably shot while trying to save some of his parishoners who’ve gathered in the very top part of his church. When the boat he’d managed to obtain is later used by looters Robicheaux knows there’s some connection to Le Blanc’s fate. In this novel and in many others in this series we see all of cultural and ethnic sides of New Orleans. We also see some of the not-very nice sides of the city. But even when he’s describing New Orleans at its worst Burke captures how very much alive the city really is.

Barbara Hambly has written a very interesting New-Orleans based historical mystery series featuring Dr. Benjamin January, who left New Orleans to study medicine in Paris. In A Free Man of Color, the first of the series, January returns to 1830′s New Orleans after the death of his beloved wife Ayasha. Her loss has left him heartbroken and unable to stay in Paris. Since he is barred because of his race from a medical career, January makes a living playing piano. That’s how he gets access to all sorts of New Orleans events from private parties to larger events, including the famous Mardi Gras Carnival. These stories offer a look at the city through the eyes of someone who’s in some ways an outsider, especially in the early novels in this series. But January is from New Orleans and he knows the New Orleans of the 1830′s intimately. Through January’s eyes Hambly effectively depicts all of the layers of ante-bellum New Orleans.

Even some authors whose novels aren’t primarily set in New Orleans sometimes bring their characters there. For instance Nevada Barr’s Burn, featuring her National Park Service Ranger Anna Pigeon, takes place mostly in New Orleans. In that novel Pigeon decides to visit her friend Geneva, who’s a singer at the New Orleans Jazz National Historic Park. It’s not long before Pigeon suspects that Geneva’s tenant Jordan may have connections to New Orleans’ child trafficking trade. So she decides to track him to find out what and who he really is. This story is related to the simultaneous story of Seattle chemist Clare Sullivan, who is accused of setting the fire that kills her husband and two children. She is convinced though that her children are alive and have been taken to New Orleans. Sullivan uses all of the skills at her disposal to try to find her children.

New Orleans is an exciting, fun, exotic, mysterious place. As author Julie Smith says, it’s full of secrets. It’s got some of the finest food there is and world class music (I’m telling you, New Orleans breathes music). With so much vibrancy, so much confluence of different groups and backgrounds and so much rich history, it’s little wonder that New Orleans is the setting for some compelling crime fiction. This post has only mentioned a few examples; which are your favourites?
 

ps. The ‘photo shows a voodoo luck treasure I got in the French Quarter of New Orleans. I wandered one day to the part of the French Quarter that the tourists don’t usually visit and was very glad I did. And the CD? There is nothing like a ‘Trane ride.
 
 
 

NOTE: The title of this post is the title of a song by Eddie DeLange and Louis Alter.