Smith, Julie Books

New Orleans Noir (Akashic Noir)

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Heartbreaking, Gritty Stories of The Big Easy 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 9 people found this review helpful.

I picked this book up because Julie Smith is the editor and has a story in it. I have to say that hers was my favorite, by far. She's an ace mystery writer and I highly recommend all of her books if you haven't yet discovered them.

Exploring the darker side of the "Big Easy", these tales are unputdownable, gritty and down-to-earth whether dealing with the aftermath of Katrina, Mardi Gras or the seamier underside of life in the French Quarter.

I was happy to discover that a portion of the profits from this book are being donated to the New Orleans Public Library, a fabulous cause.

I'd never before read the "Noir" series, but I plan to look up other books in it. It's well deserving of five stars!!

Editorial Review:

Brand-new stories by: Thomas Adcock, Ace Atkins, Patty Friedmann, David Fulmer, Barbara Hambly, Greg Herren, Laura Lippman, Tim McLoughlin, James Nolan, Ted O'Brien, Eric Overmyer, Jeri Cain Rossi, Maureen Tan, Jervey Tervalon, Olympia Vernon, Christine Wiltz, Kalamu Ya Salaam, and Julie Smith.

Julie Smith is the author of two detective series set in New Orleans and an Edgar Award winner. A former reporter for the New Orleans Times-Picayune and the San Francisco Chronicle, she lives in the Faubourg Marigny section of New Orleans, which is much funkier than it sounds.

New Orleans Mourning (Skip Langdon Novels)

Julie Smith

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

New Orleans High and Low 4 out of 5 stars.
10 of 11 people found this review helpful.

Skip Langdon can never be called your every-day cop/heroine. She is a 6-ft. mass of insecurities. She is oh-so-aware of her parent's compulsive social climbing, yet is branded "the debutante" by her fellow cops. She attended all the best schools and parties, but never felt like the "in-group." She has dropped out, dropped in, and is now trying to make a success in the New Orleans Police Department, living in the Quarter, unsure of herself with a totally non-supportive family who look down on her "blue collar" job.

Yet Skip is a likeable, bright gal who knows New Orleans like an oyster knows his shell. She is on parade patrol at the height of Mardi Gras and is an eyewitness when the King of the Carnival, upper-crust businessman Chauncey St. Amant is shot while waving to the crowd from his float. In full view of the crowd, a person costumed as Dolly Parton has shot him from a balcony on the parade route. Pandemonium!

Rookie cop Skip is quickly assigned to the homicide team on the case because she "knows" these top-drawer people. (This seemed a little flimsy to me, but what do I know about the New Orleans Police Department?) Enter the St. Amant family, worthy of Tennessee Williams. Fragile, alcoholic wife, Bitty has a tenuous hold on reality; gay son Henry who adores his mother and loathes the late Chauncey; beautiful, perfectly mannered, but oh-so-wild daughter Marcelle; and loyal family friend Tolliver, who might be in love with Bitty, but then again might be gay. This tattered, aristocratic family takes over the book. Nothing is quite as it seems, and many twists and turns take place before the conclusion. Then we have another fillip of a twist that smartly reminds us of just what New Orleans is all about.

This is an engrossing story with a few too many side stories that however interesting, divert us from the main event. Ms. Smith has an excellent ear for dialogue and a good sense of the ridiculous; some of the incidents and confrontations are hilarious. I would call this a novel with a mystery thrown in. I would like to see a "straight" novel from Ms. Smith; I think it would be a success. "New Orleans Mourning" is a fun and instructive read.

Editorial Review:

It's Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and after spending most of his life trying to reach high society, Chauncy St. Amant has been crowned Rex, King of Carnival. But his day of glory comes to an abrupt and bloody end when a party-goer dressed as Dolly Parton guns him down. Skip Langdon, a rookie police officer and former debutante turned cynic of the uptown crowd, is assigned to the case. Scouring the streets for clues, interviewing revelers and street people with names like Jo Jo, Hinky and Cookie, and using her white glove contacts, the post-deb rebel cop comes up with a motive for murder that surprises even herself. New Orleans Mourning won the 1991 Edgar Award for best mystery novel.

P.I. on a Hot Tin Roof: A Talba Wallis Novel

Julie Smith

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

When PI Talba Wallis gets a frantic phone call from Orleans Parish Prison, the last person she expects to hear from is her boss's lawyer daughter, Angie. Popped for drug possession, Angie insists the drugs were planted. She's a target for representing a neighborhood group protesting the illegal commercial use of a marina by its owner, Judge Buddy Champagne. According to Angie, the judge is dirty---and he's the one who had her set up.

Talba and her boss, Eddie, are outraged---knowing Angie as they do, they pull out all the stops for her. And when Talba goes undercover as a housekeeper for Judge Champagne, she finds a household straight out of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, with the judge playing Big Daddy. The weak son and the hot daughter-in-law are in residence, being "between jobs." Big Mama's absent, though---she died some time ago, and the judge is now adding his fiancée to the mix. That would be Miss Kristin LaGarde, an impossibly lovely, and possibly innocent, young lady who seems hopelessly in love with the old coot.

Talba dredges up lots of interesting material; such as that someone was accidentally electrocuted at the marina and that the judge is in bed with certain bail bondsmen. She finds evidence of bribes and kickbacks. He's dirty all right.

When the story breaks and the scandal deepens, Judge Champagne winds up dead. And, to her surprise, Talba is asked to investigate. Did politics kill the judge? Or was it his own family?

Louisiana Bigshot: A Talba Wallis Novel

Julie Smith

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Talba Wallis, hip and happening PI, a.k.a. the Baroness Pontalba, star of the New Orleans avant garde, was first introduced in Louisiana Hotshot and returns in this deft, well-written mystery about Babalu Maya, a "healer" who wants to know if her boyfriend is cheating on her. Shortly after Talba confirms her client's suspicions, Babalu dies of a heroin overdose the police are certain is a suicide. But both Talba and Jason, Babalu's contrite and confused boyfriend, find it such an improbable scenario that he hires Talba to find out what really happened. Unraveling the mystery takes the sassy sleuth with the attitude that's bigger than she is to the small Louisiana town where Babalu was born and to the prominent, influential family that turned its back on her a long time ago. While the plot isn't much more than a routine Southern gothic, the heroine is: Talba Wallis is a lively, engaging protagonist with family secrets of her own that are revealed in a secondary plot that's much more interesting than the primary one. Smith, the author of three other series, has a real winner in this one. --Jane Adams

Louisiana Lament: A Talba Wallis Novel (Talba Wallis)

Julie Smith

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Allyson Brown, the Girl Gatsby, is a woman of wealth, hostess of fabled parties, patron of the arts--especially of poets. Found floating in her own swimming pool, shot to death.Poet and fledgling detective Talba Wallis gets an urgent call from the sister she barely knows: Janessa. To Girl Gatsby Janessa is close friend. But this call isn't an invitation to an elegant literary salon. Janessa wants off the hook as the principal murder suspect.Investigating, Talba and her irascible boss, Eddie, find the reality behind the Gatsby glamour. Allyson was widely hated, a con artist who neglected her children, failed to pay her bills, and lied to everyone she wanted something from. The one person she loved may have ushered her to her death.The case takes Talba and Eddie from literary parties to Gulf Coast bait shops, from biker bars to abandoned wharves, and finally, to the story of another Gatsby, which may yield answers, or greater mysteries.Louisiana Lament is Talba's journey through the not-so-genteel Southern literary scene, where backbiting and petty jealousies abound, and mint juleps are served with canapés of carnage.

Death Turns a Trick (A Rebecca Schwartz Mystery)

Julie Smith

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

I love Julie Smith and want more Rebecca Schwartz books! 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I'm not a huge Skip Langdon fan, but I love Rebecca Schwartz and her friends! Rebecca is a feisty, Jewish feminist lawyer who narrowly escapes trouble while playing piano in a bordello one night. Murder and mayhem follow, of course. What I really like about this book (and the other Rebecca Schwartz books) are the characters. Rebecca is so real -- she's proud of her strengths, and frustrated by her weaknesses. The book is written in first person, so you get to know her quite well. I like her law partner, her journalist boyfriend, her younger sister, and the sister's out-of-work-actor boyfriend, who is also Rebecca's receptionist. The story takes place in San Fransisco, with lots of wonderful descriptions of San Fransisco scenery, happenings, and food. The Sourdough Wars ties with Death Turns a Trick as my favorite Julie Smith mystery.

Skip and New Orleans just don't do it for me, much as I've tried...I just wish that Julie Smith would write some more Rebecca Schwartz mysteries so I wouldn't have to keep re-reading the few I have!

Editorial Review:

Rebecca Schwartz is a fairly normal Bay-area attorney. But when she almost gets busted for playing piano in a bordello, and Kandi, a part-time student-prostitute is killed in her home, and then the killer stalks Rebecca, it's time to take action--which is just what she does....

Mean Woman Blues (Skip Langdon) (Talba Wallis)

Julie Smith

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Last in the Series? 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Julie Smith has written nineteen novels in four mystery series. The protagonists are Rebecca Schwartz, Paul McDonald, Skip Langdon and Talba Wallis. MEAN WOMAN BLUES is the ninth and latest novel in the Skip Langdon series, and my gut feel is it will be the last. It is the first Skip Langdon novel that I have read, and I found it self-contained, although the flurry of names in chapter one unsettled me. Many of the characters, I realized, began their careers early in the Skip Langdon series. It would have been smarter, I thought, to have started with the first Skip Langdon novel, NEW ORLEANS MOURNING, and follow Skip's career from the beginning. Besides, NEW ORLEANS MOURNING won the Edgar Allan Poe award for best novel in 1991. By the way, you can become acquainted with the author and her stories at www.JulieSmithAuthor.com.

I have a problem remembering names, so I decided to reread chapter one of NEW ORLEANS MOURNING and list the characters, their roles and alias, and I continued to tabulate names throughout the novel. In total, I found 77 proper names for people, three for pets, plus two phony names to mask the identity of the owner of a bank account and a cell phone. Additionally, there were 28 nicknames, alias or maiden names used for some of the 77 characters. I'm not sure, but I think that's a record for any book I've read recently.

In LOUISIANA BIGSHOT, Skip pursues Errol Jacomine, a.k.a. Daddy, a.k.a. Eliza Dolittle, a.k.a. Earl, a.k.a. David Wright, a.k.a. Mr. Right, a.k.a. Earl Jackson. Errol is trying to kill Skip, so it's a matter of who gets whom first. It's an enjoyable story with a credulous plot, resonant dialogue and vivid descriptions of New Orleans and nearby places. I like Julie Smith's writing. She doesn't mess around with that drawn out, exhaustive, flowery stuff, but gives just enough for us to get the feel and smell of things, and lawd, dat girl got an ear for hows we talk down en N'Orleans.

Editorial Review:

A Skip Langdon Novel

Nemesis: the rival fate never allows you to beat.

The nemesis of Skip Langdon, New Orleans police detective, is Errol Jacomine. This evangelical preacher has been leader of his own frenzied army of converts, has run for mayor of New Orleans, and now wants to become president of the United States. His campaign methods are rabble-rousing, theft, kidnapping, and multiple murder.

Skip thinks he's as dangerous as Jim Jones. She has chased him for years, no luck. Now Jacomine comes after Skip, her lover, and her friends. She must track him down. But his guise this time is so clever even his own children don't recognize him.

In Mean Woman Blues, Edgar Award-winner Julie Smith returns triumphantly to her popular series about hip New Orleans detective Skip Langdon, once again operating in sensual, sexy, exotic New Orleans.

This time Skip is able to teach Jacomine that nemesis originally meant the goddess of retributive justice.

Louisiana Hotshot: A Talba Wallis Novel (Talba Wallis)

Julie Smith

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 21 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Talba Wallis, the smart, sassy, African American computer whiz who's also a gifted poet and artist, made her debut in Smith's last Skip Langdon mystery, 82 Desire--along with her alter ego, the Baroness de Pontalba. Here she's back in a story of her own, holding court at a hip café by night (and keeping her audience entertained with the rap story of how her mother named her Urethra) while embarking by day on a new career as a detective under the cynical aegis of Eddie Valentino, an old PI who's never encountered anyone quite like her before.

But Eddie's got problems of his own, so he turns Talba loose investigating the possible molestation of a young black teenager and the disappearance of a couple of her friends. There's something about the violent trail she's following on this, her first case, that's stirring up Talba's own memories of her long-gone father, about whom neither Miz Clara, Talba's tough and crusty mama, nor her yuppie brother the doctor will utter a word. Set in New Orleans, territory Smith knows well, this is a lively mystery with a vivid, outrageous, and wholly likable new heroine whose appearance will be welcomed by fans of the writer's Skip Langdon series. --Jane Adams

Crescent City Kill (Skip Langdon Novels)

Julie Smith

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A deliciously evil villain takes on Skip for Round?Great! 5 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.

There is a national movement called The Jury that has arrived out of nowhere, hides behind a veil of secrecy, and is attracting the attention of many good people who are covertly cheering them on. Who is this group? Ostensibly, they are a group of citizens concerned that the justice system in America is letting too many guilty people go free. Rather than sit idly by, they intend to do something about it. Their first act of vigilante justice is to kill an OJ like sports figure who was found not guilty of murdering his wife. The public felt that the man bought his innocent verdict and that justice was finally served.

In New Orleans, a corrupt white police superintendent resigns and is replaced by an honest black man. The people have hope that the wide spread corruption will be swept away by the new top cop. Instead, the man is gunned down by a supremacist, who loathes the idea of a black running the police department. When the police, including Detective Skip Langdon, arrest the perp, The Jury assassinates him. Skip smells the evil odor of her old enemy, the psychopathic Errol Jacomine, as the mastermind behind The Jury. In a cat and mouse game where the stakes are Skip's life, the officer and the criminal must enter the other's head if they expect to win the fight.

CRESCENT CITY KILL is a classic good Vs evil battle with the villain being so alluring he obtains the support of good people. The intrepid heroine is forced to risk her soul in an epic war against the evil genius. This is an excellent novel in a superb series that fans will not want to miss.

Harriet Klausner

Editorial Review:

Who or what is The Jury? To her horror, NOPD detective Skip Langdon discovers it is a new, national, fast-growing, and very volatile organization headquartered in New Orleans. Its mission: to execute those who have "escaped" prosecution. What's more, Skip perceives that behind this deadly, clandestine group lies the evil brilliance of her old adversary, charismatic con man and cold-blooded killer Errol Jacomine. She's been waiting for Jacomine to orchestrate his twisted plan for revenge. The time is now. . . .

Huckleberry Fiend (Paul McDonald Mysteries)

Julie Smith

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

This is the FUNNIEST mystery I've ever read!! 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.

I have habitually read mysteries for the last 11 years. In that time I've become especially fond of women writers on the gendre who write about female protagonists. I also enjoy books which feature California. However, All that aside I was constantly laughing out loud while reading this book. It's more than enjoyable, it's a must read.

Editorial Review:

When a burglar discovers an original manuscript for The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in the closet of a stewardess who later turns up dead, he decides to join forces with Paul McDonald to solve the mystery. Reissue. NYT.