Thursday, June 21, 2012

City of the Dead-Daniel Blake

City of the Dead


Daniel Blake

Gallery/Pocket, Jul 10 2012, $25.00

ISBN: 9781439197622



In 2005 Pittsburgh police officer Franco Patrese accepts a FBI position in the New Orleans field office. He attends a Fourth of July party hosted by the city’s wealthiest person St. John Varden. At the gala, Patrese meets Varden’s personal assistant Cindy Rojciewicz. She arranges for the fed to meet her at a nearby bar by telling him she has harrowing information on human sacrifice.



When she fails to arrive at their rendezvous point, a concerned Patrese goes to her apartment. There he finds NOPD homicide detective Selma Fawcett investigating the horrid ritual murder of Rojciewicz. With a snake near the naked corpse; whose blood was drained from her body and a leg removed. Patrese and Fawcett team up to look into Cindy’s homicide and other recent voodoo ritualistic murders as they consult with the current Marie Laveau even while the National Weather Service warns of Hurricane Katrina bearing down on New Orleans.



The second Patrese police procedural (see Thou Shalt Kill) has the cynical cop moving from the Rust Belt to the Wet Belt as he changes jobs but works another gruesome serial killing case. His personality seems opposite of his more upbeat new partner while Katrina seems apropos as the truth does not always set you free when it is ugly.



Harriet Klausner





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