Gritty, tough noir

Book blurb

Karissa Scott is a thirty-year-old woman, flamboyant in dress and attitude toward life, but she’s in crisis. Her career in a downtown Cincinnati art gallery is going nowhere. She convinces her friend J.J., a chess prodigy and computer geek, to accompany her to New Orleans where she plans to kickstart her abandoned journalism career by investigating art thefts, thanks to an inside tip from a friendly detective. When she discovers a rococo masterpiece in a hidden room of a former slave plantation mansion, she thinks she’s on the verge of a Pulitzer. Guy Devereaux, the mansion’s owner—and the ringleader of a gang of art thieves—has other plans for her.

The next two weeks of her life on the run with J.J. takes her through alligator-infested bayou to sleazy motels in the New Orleans red-light district, always a half-step ahead of Devereaux and his hired killer…

My thoughts

Karissa wants a change her work in a Cincinnati art gallery is not fulfilling her needs and at 30 years old if she doesn’t do anything about it she’ll be completely stuck. Then a contact in Cincinnati P.D. gives her a tip about missing artwork and she takes a leap of faith into kickstarting her dream career – journalism. After persuading her friend J.J. into accompanying her they head off to New Orleans to find an art thief and get Karissa her big break!

J.J. is a computer geek, a chess prodigy and a real friend. He was a bit hesitant to tag along with Karissa but he did. Will he live to regret it? Will he live!

It’s not long until the intrepid pair get a chance to look into a potential bad guy in the shape of Guy Devereaux. He owns a mansion and Karissa gets an invite for her and J.J. to Devereaux’s place. It’s not quite the grand mansion expected but Karissa sees something when she is given a tour! J.J. had been playing chess and beaten Devereaux’s player winning quite a bit of money. Karissa wants to check out a room so it’s on the pretext that J.J. will play chess and allow Devereaux’s young player to win back the money that they get a second invitation.

Karissa and J.J. return but they, or rather Karissa is caught out snooping. There’s no getting away and they are soon locked up in an outbuilding. After some hard work and with lots of determination they get away only to find themselves in the dangerous waters of the bayou!

Can Karissa and J.J. get away? Will Karissa get her big break in art journalism or will Devereaux and his pretty nasty henchman cum chauffeur, James, catch them and shut them up for good?

This story swings between madcap antics and something quite dark. Using Karissa and J.J. as foils for each other to bring a rather kitsch sense of humour to the surface in order to allay their fears and rally each other as they go from one tight spot to another in pursuit of the truth.

This isn’t a story with a neatly constructed ending, not all the bad guys are brought to justice, although some definitely get more than they bargained for! It’s a gritty tale set in some of the less salubrious parts of New Orleans. Still, if your taste runs to a story that’s a little quirky, to characters that can be a little annoying but you still find yourself routing for them this is the story for you and I hope you enjoy it as I did.

Book: My thanks to the author Robert T White who sent Danse Macabre in New Orleans to me across the ocean solely in exchange for my honest opinion about it. I hope I’ve done it justice and be assured the thoughts penned above are completely my own.

Information

Published: Independently published (22 Oct. 2024) | 292pp |ISBN-13‏ : ‎979-8339479352 | Alien Buddha Press

Buy: Amazon.com | AmazonUK | Your local library | Your local bookshop

Author: Robert T. White lives and writes in Northeastern Ohio. He publishes crime, noir, horror, hard boiled novels, mainstream fiction and has had genre stories published in various magazines and anthologies. He’s been nominated for a Derringer.

“Inside Man,” a crime story, was selected for Best American Mystery Stories 2019.

Writing

The Thomas Haftmann Novels

Haftmann’s Rules (2011)| Nocturne for Madness, 2015 | Saraband for a Runaway, 2017 | Doggerel for Dead Whores, 2019 | Haftmann’s Rules, 2020 |

The Raimo Jarvi Novels

His second hardboiled p.i. series (after the Thomas Haftmann mysteries began in 2011 with Haftmann’s Rules) features Raimo Jarvi.

Northtown Eclipse (Fahrenheit Press, 2018) | Northtown Blitz (Fahrenheit Press, 2020) | Northtown Angelus (Grand Mal Press, 5 Jan. 2024)

Other writing

Out of Breath and Other Stories is a mixed collection of mainstream and noir fiction (Red Giant Press, 2013).

Big Cat Bounce (Fahrenheit Press)

British website Murder, Mayhem & More cited When You Run with Wolves (rpt. 2018) as a finalist for Top Ten Crime Books of 2018 and Perfect Killer in 2019.

Jade Hui, Special Agent, made her first appearance in Perfect Killer (Crowood Press, 2018), a thriller cited by the British website Murder, Mayhem & More as a finalist for its Top Ten Crime Books of the year. 

If I Let You Get Me was selected for the Bouchercon 2019 anthology and The Russian Heist (Moonshine Cove, 2019), another crime thriller, was selected by Thriller Magazine as winner of its Best Novel category in 2020.

“Barn Find” SMFS Published in Rock and a Hard Place: Issue 3, Spring/Summer 2020

Betray Me Not is a recent collection of revenge tales selected for distinction by the Independent Fiction Alliance in 2022.

Another collection of noir tales, Fade to Black: Noir Stories of Grifters, Drifters, & Unlovable Losers was published in June 2024.

Danse Macabre in New Orleans

Danse Macabre in New Orleans (Alien Buddha, 2024), featuring amateur sleuth Karissa Scott.

Find Robert

Website: https://tomhaftmann.wixsite.com/robbtwhite

AmazonUK author page

Social Media: X (formerly Twitter) | Facebook: facebook.com/tomhaftmann | Instagram: Robbtw1234