Big Easy Bonanza

of blue remained, she threw the scarf and nightshirt onto the blaze and ran naked into the house, hoping she met no one on the stairs. From her window she watched the fire die. As the last ember winked itself out, she stepped into the shower.
    THE END
    The next Skip Langdon mystery IS THE AXEMAN’S JAZZ . Find out about it at WWW.BOOKSBNIMBLE.COM OR WWW.JULIESMITHBOOKS.COM

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
    A thousand thanks to Lieutenant Linda Buczek of the New Orleans Police Department and to Betsy Petersen, each of whom helped with a thousand details. More local lore came from Tom Petersen, Diane Angelico, Chris Wiltz, Betty Pearson, Sheila Bosworth, William Barlow, and a secret sleuth who must not be named. Dr. Patty Barnwell, Dr. Robert Haxbaugh, Bob Celecia, and Philip Shelton were generous with technical advice in their areas. Heartfelt thanks to all of them and special, extra thanks to my literary agents, Vicky Bijur and Charlotte Sheedy.
    Author’s Note
    This is a vintage book—twenty-two years young at this writing. So the question, in bringing it to electronic form, was how to update it. I opted against giving everyone cell phones, since I think one of the points of a mystery series is to serve as a record of life in the time it was written and place it was set. But I couldn’t resist a bit of light editing. What author could?
    —Julie Smith

The Skip Langdon Series
(in order of publication)
    NEW ORLEANS MOURNING
    THE AXEMAN’S JAZZ
    JAZZ FUNERAL
    DEATH BEFORE FACEBOOK (formerly NEW ORLEANS BEAT)
    HOUSE OF BLUES
    THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS
    CRESCENT CITY CONNECTION (formerly CRESCENT CITY KILL)
    82 DESIRE
    MEAN WOMAN BLUES

Also by Julie Smith
    The Rebecca Schwartz Series
    DEATH TURNS A TRICK
    THE SOURDOUGH WARS
    TOURIST TRAP
    DEAD IN THE WATER
    OTHER PEOPLE’S SKELETONS
    The Paul Macdonald Series
    TRUE-LIFE ADVENTURE
    HUCKLEBERRY FIEND
    The Talba Wallis Series :
    LOUISIANA HOTSHOT
    LOUISIANA BIGSHOT
    LOUISIANA LAMENT
    P.I. ON A HOT TIN ROOF
    As Well As:
    WRITING YOUR WAY: THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL TRACK
    NEW ORLEANS NOIR (ed.)
    And don’t miss ALWAYS OTHELLO, a Skip Langdon story, as well as the brand new short story, PRIVATE CHICK, which asks the question, “Is this country ready for a drag queen detective?” More info at www.booksBnimble.com .

About the Author
    JULIE SMITH is a New Orleans writer and former reporter for the San Francisco
Chronicle
and the
Times-Picayune
.
New Orleans Mourning
, her first novel featuring New Orleans cop Skip Langdon, won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel, and she has since published eight more highly acclaimed books in the series, plus spun off a second New Orleans series featuring PI and poet Talba Wallis.
    She is also the author of the Rebecca Schwartz series and the Paul Mcdonald series, plus the YA novels CURSEBUSTERS! and EXPOSED. In addition to her novels, she’s written numerous essays and short stories and is the editor of NEW ORLEANS NOIR, an anthology of dark stories, each set in a different New Orleans neighborhood.



 
    “
Crooked Man
is the literary equivalent of film noir—fast, tough, tense, and darkly funny… with an ending so deeply satisfying …that a reader might well disturb the midnight silence with laughter.” – Los Angeles Times Book Review
    “The sense of place in
Crooked Man
is so thick you can smell the chicory in the coffee.” —The New York Times Book Review
    “Dunbar’s first novel is a deliciously witty caper through the idiosyncratic landscape of New Orleans with a conclusion that’s as cleverly convoluted and amusing as the rest of this tale.” —Publishers Weekly
    “…an entertaining, exciting mystery debut, with (the author’s) savvy sassy legal alter ego Tubby Dubonnet taking readers on a fast-paced tour of the glittering surfaces and dirty underside of New Orleans.” —New Orleans Times-Picayune
    “…as crisp as fried catfish, as tasty as soft-shelled crab. Tubby Dubbonnet is sly, tricky, sentimental—yet very tough…a stellar debut.” —Edgar-winner Joe Gores

Crooked Man, G.P. Putnam’s Sons (New York, 1994) is the FIRST IN THE SERIES.
    Other Tubby Dubonnet Mysteries:
    City of Beads, G.P. Putnam’s (New York, 1995)
    Trick Question, G.P. Putnam’s Sons (New York, 1996)
    Shelter From the Storm, G.P. Putnam’s Sons (New York, 1997)
    The Crime Czar, Dell Publishing (New York, 1998)
    Lucky Man, Dell Publishing (New York, 1999)
    Tubby Meets Katrina, NewSouth Books (Montgomery, 2006)
    For more about