In the New Orleans of fiction, in the decades before James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux, the best-known detective in the city is David Fulmer’s Valentin St. Cyr. In three notable novels, Fulmer had his Creole investigator chasing down murderers and other criminals in the Big Easy of the early 1900s. LOST RIVER, the fourth in the series, returns St. Cyr to his old stomping ground of Storyville.
The setting is autumn of 1913, and as a new day dawns in the red light district of Storyville, the body of a man shot dead is found in the foyer of one of the higher-class brothels. The panicked Madame immediately sends for St. Cyr, but he replies that the Storyville area and its problems are no longer his concern.
In fact, it’s been a good six years since St. Cyr was the right-hand man of Tom Anderson, manager of most of the businesses in Storyville. These days, St. Cyr’s detecting skills are in the employ of a firm of expensive lawyers and their wealthy clientele. This is not only his attempt to improve his career, but also a solemn promise he made to his live-in girlfriend, Justine, herself a former prostitute.
But roots run deep. So as more dead men appear in or near the Storyville brothels, St. Cyr succumbs to the lure of his former life and vows to find and stop the murderer. That’s good news for Anderson and the various Madames. But it’s bad news for the local police sergeant who has always held St. Cyr and his reputation in contempt. And St. Cyr knows that his actions could cost him his classier career, as well as his girlfriend.
Fulmer’s prose is impressively understated yet effective. He manages to evoke the sights, sounds and even smells of early New Orleans without heavy-handed nostalgia, nor distracting historical asides. Often a well-placed, period-specific word does the trick – like the “banguetts” of the city streets; or referring to Justine as St. Cyr’s “quadroon”; or calling the unmistakable music of the streets by its original term, “jass.”
Also impressive is how Fulmer incorporates each of the several secondary characters. He weaves the police officers, the politicians, the various street urchins, the Madames and all the others into his narrative directly, but sparingly. And the pacing moves forward with each character’s contribution.
The only miscalculation, however, is the somewhat awkward inclusion of King Buddy Bolden. Once St. Cyr’s childhood friend, the influential music innovator here is a patient at the state mental institute with only his fading memories to keep him company. He becomes a witness to the planning of the novel’s crimes and eventually points St. Cyr toward the discovery of vital information. But his overall role in the narrative is intrusive and superfluous, and feels like Fulmer’s sole concession to period recreation.
However, there is more than enough in this evocative, alluring novel to forgive this defect. And if LOST RIVER is your introduction to this series, you’ll find yourself searching for the earlier titles the moment you finish this one. —Alan Cranis
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- The Dark River
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- LOST to be found … in bookstores
