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The anthology opens with a strong story, "Icon" by Alison Gaylin, a USA Today bestselling author. Icon is the name of a 9-year-old serial killer who is helped in her murder spree by her nanny. It sets the tone for the anthology, which is full of weird, only-in-New-Orleans stories.
Bayous, of course, figure prominently in many of the tales. One of my favorites is "And Down We Go" by BV Lawson. Two men are trapped in a car that is slowly sinking into Barbue Bayou, one calmly reminiscing and the other panicked—for good reason.
Not surprisingly, voodoo makes an appearance in a few stories, with strong contenders in "Voodoo at the Jitterbug" by Kaye Wilkinson Barley and "Three Rivers Voodoo" by Liz Milliron, in which the protagonists use the dark arts to exact revenge on deserving characters. After reading these, you may want to buy a voodoo doll—or two.
"The Blue Delta" by John Floyd is another favorite, a story about a prison escapee. It is filled with taut tension, each page delivering another twist as the story slowly unspools to its final reveal. The stories vary in length, and Sheila Connolly packs a punch in only seven pages, with "The Dark Places," giving an unexpected ending in a story about an alley shooting.
Some authors used characters from their regular series, a good way of giving us a taste of their books. In "Good and Dead," Elaine Viets takes her private eye, Helen Hawthorne, and Helen's gray-haired and purple-clad wise-cracking landlady, Margery Flax, on a trip from Florida to The Big Easy. They are in hot pursuit of a charity's employee, who has absconded with over a hundred grand. The plot thickens, of course, almost as soon as they arrive.
"The Attitude Adjuster" by David Morrell (Rambo creator and author of a current mystery series set in Victorian London), also uses familiar characters from Morrell's protective-agent series. His protagonists look to help a friend whose husband has been badly beaten in this wonderful twisty tale that wraps up the anthology.
Some stories are stronger than others, as in most anthologies, but this is a broad collection with something for every taste—from noir to lighthearted to historicals and stories with an O. Henry twist. All profits from the anthology go to New Orleans Public Libraries, so not only do readers get worthy stories, but they help a worthy cause.
§ Lourdes Venard is an independent editor who divides her time between New York and Maui.
Reviewed by Lourdes Venard, October 2016
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