So Small A Carnival

Description for SO SMALL A CARNIVAL by John William Corrington and Joyce H Corrington:

Crime and intrigue are not strangers to New Orleans, and when Wes Colvin, a reporter for the "New Orleans Item" with an urgent itch for bigger and faster places, gets an anonymous phone call, he expects to be told that Colombian drug traffic is moving into the city---a story that could put him in the journalistic big time. But he arrives at a French Quarter bar to find the place a shambles of blood and broken bodies, its habitues machine-gunned to death just moments before.

Among the victims is Auguste Lemoyne, a member of one of the city's oldest families and, long ago, a deadly foe of the populist governor and redneck hero Huey Long. Wes's probing into the reason for the slaughter and his digging into Lemoyne's past draw him into the dark swamps of Louisiana politics, closer to the story of a lifetime---the truth behind the unsolved assassination of Huey Long. But, at every turn, there is the chance that Wes Colvin will never emerge from the darkness alive.

With vivid characters (including "Rat" Trapp, one very tough black homicide detective, and Denise Lemoyne, Auguste's gorgeous granddaughter), a feel for place and history rare in crime fiction, some mouth-watering New Orleans meals, and the looming presence of one of the century's great crimes, SO SMALL A CARNIVAL offers superior, literate entertainment and suspense. What Elmore Leonard does for Detroit and Raymond Chandler did for Los Angeles, the Corringtons achieve for their exotic hometown, New Orleans.