This book set in 1919 New Orleans is one of the creepiest and most atmospheric books I've ever read. The characters are very well-drawn and the plot goes along at a breakneck pace in three or four different directions while all of New Orleans is trying to find the killer who is stalking their city and killing families with an axe. The police are trying to capture the killer, and Lieutenant Michael Talbot and his team think it is the mafiosos that are arranging the killers. A young woman, who happens to be a friend of a young Louis Armstrong, is trying to earn her bones as a Pinkerton investigator, and she enters into a different criminal empire that is not the mafioso, but it is run by a particularly ruthless man who has been in charge of the brothels in Storyville in New Orleans for years, and former Lieutenant Luca d'Andrea who has just been released from prison where he has spent the last five years, arrested because of his connection to the Mafia and the things that he did while in the force for his Mafia friends. d'Andrea has been hired by the Mafia to find the axe killer, and he is working with a different set of suspects. d'Andrea is on a different tack all together and his is based on history and revenge killing appears to be the motive from long ago atrocities. Each thinks they have found their suspect, but actually only one is the right solution On the night when a big flood hits New Orleans after many days of rain, all three sleuths are faced with death, each by their chosen suspect. Only one is right, and is the truth going to come out and the proper suspect put into prison? This is definitely a page-turner of a book, and I love the setting and the time-frame. It's all here -- a keep you up at night kind of thriller, and I highly recommend it. Keep your head in the game as you read because there are more red herrings than I've ever seen in any one book. ( )

The writing was good, and the mystery kept me hooked, but because it's more detective procedural than murder mystery I realized it's big really my genre. Still a good take on an unsolved serial killer case. Unfortunately won't be reading any of the others in the series. ( )

This was okay, the New Orleans setting well done and the concept intriguing, but it just jumped around too much for me. I'd love to have read a version of it that just focussed on Ida and Lewis rather than trying to be something grander by weaving its multiple strands together. ( )

I enjoy historical mysteries but a criticism I’ve seen of this book, that there are so many characters thrown in that it is hard to remember who is who is actually spot on.

The atmosphere of New Orleans is excellent, and the ending is very exciting. ( )

This was a book group book, the last one before the Covid19 lockdown in NZ.

Set in New Orleans, it traded heavily on that city, its culture and environs. I couldn’t work or if the story would have worked if it had been set somewhere else?

Was that Male lead character meant to be Louis Armstrong? If he was, it was a drag because you knew that he wouldn’t get killed anywhere in this tale.

Anyway, the contrast between the young woman private detective and the colour bar breaking white cop detective was very good as both a plot device and a social commentary.

It rained a lot and everything was damp and moist all the time.

Most of it happened at night so it was dark and damp. It was so evocative that twice I had to put the book down and go and change of my damp clothes. I kept looking over my shoulder too it was that creepy.

And it just kinda ended without any resolution between the young black woman and the white cop or was that the lead in to the next in series novel?

Anyway, it was a good read ( )