REVIEW

J.L. Burke’s Flags On The Bayou

Is A Masterful Tale Of The Civil War

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: James Lee Burke is consistently America’s finest living crime writer. His new novel, Flags on the Bayou, is a beautifully crafted Civil War tale set in and around New Iberia, Louisiana, which Burke fans will recognize from his Dave Robicheaux series, and which provides a rich backdrop to the sin and evil that define that horrific period in American history. The book is told from the first-person viewpoint of a half dozen characters whose lives become intertwined at the end of 1863, following the reckless bloodshed at Shiloh, Antietam, and Gettysburg has dampened the spirits of the South. The lands near New Orleans are largely under Union control, though bands of marauding Confederate soldiers and “irregulars” roam the countryside. Hannah Laveau, an enslaved woman reputed to be related to a notorious voodoo priestess, stands accused of murdering the sadistic plantation owner who assaulted her. In jail, she meets abolitionist schoolteacher Florence Milton, who takes Hannah under her wing. Eventually, the two women escape and are hounded by slave catchers, mercenary officers, and a host of other unsavory individuals whom Burke weaves together with masterful ease. The result is a propulsive story of war, love, treachery, racism, corruption, and the venereal spread of black hate that rots the human heart during the time of war. Flags on the Bayou clearly is one of Burke’s finest novels and, without question, his most probative examination of the enduring depravity of slavery.

Too Many Drugs, Trappists Monks Led James Patterson To His First Novel

Between 2010 and 2019, one of every seven crime novels published was by a single author—James Patterson. Working with co-authors, he became a novel- writing phenomenon dearly loved by his fans, while many literary critics argued his work became cookie-cutter. No one is more aware of the criticism of his assembly-line style productivity than Patterson himself, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Why? Because his millions of readers love his books—and that, he says, is because of the attention spent on story. “My strength is I keep people turning pages, and that’s my greatest weakness because I don’t go in depth,” he says in a recent Crime Reads article. In fact, he has entire file cabinets full of plot ideas in his office and more lurking in his head, and he never suffers from writer’s block. Ever. His ideas flow like a never-ending stream of consciousness. It wasn’t always like this, however; in fact, in the early 1970s he was on a path to obtain a PhD, but a college career enhanced by recreational drugs had left him uncertain about his future. “I was doing too many drugs,” he says, noting that “I was doing well in college—mainly A’s—but I needed to clear my head.” He did that by spending 11 days with Trappist monks, an experience that left him committed to becoming a novelist rather than a professor. While working as a copywriter by day, he began writing his first novel, which eventually was published as The Thomas Berryman Number. The rest, as they say, is history.

DNA COLD CASE

Texas Woman Claims To Be Girl

Who’s Been Missing For Over 20 Years

A now-deleted TikTok video shows a Texas woman claiming to be Diamond Bradley, one of two girls who have been missing for more than 20 years. Diamond and Tionda Bradley were 3 and 10 years old when they disappeared from the family's Bronzeville, IL home in the summer of 2001, beginning what may be the largest missing person's investigation in Chicago history. The girls' mother returned home from work on July 6 to find a note allegedly written by Tionda, claiming she and Diamond had gone to the store and a school playground nearby. Relatives previously told Dateline NBC that the spelling and grammar seemed too perfect and advanced for a girl Tionda’s age. Fast forward to this past May, when a video surfaced on social media, featuring a police car in a Texas parking lot and a narrator saying, "here with Diamond Bradley," while displaying a picture of Bradley's missing person's poster on a phone. The camera shifts to a woman standing beside a vehicle. Results of a DNA test administered to the woman purporting to be Diamond have yet to be released; meanwhile, the family of the two missing sisters is reliving much of the pain they experienced over 20 summers ago.

TRUE DETECTIVE

Who Is Jimmy Harkins, And Why Do

Rich People In Trouble Hire Him?

Stand aside, Barney Miller, Danny Reagan, Kojak, and (apologies to my friend Lawrence Block) Matthew Scudder: When disgraced crypto kingpin Sam Bankman-Fried left court last December, free on $250 million bail, he was escorted to his vehicle by private investigator Jimmy Harkins. Considered by many as the best PI in the business, the former NYPD detective, now 59, was recently described by Air Mail’s Jack Crosbie as “built like a linebacker, a boulder of a man in a tailored suit, thinning hair slicked back above an impeccably groomed mustache." Known for his high-level client list that has included Ghislaine Maxwell, Calvin Klein, mobster John Gotti Jr., and O. J. Simpson, Harkins is a legendary private investigator who’s pounded pavement and turned up dirt in some of the most notorious cases in New York criminal history. His office is located in Robert De Niro's Tribeca Film Center, and he frequently holds exclusive client meetings at the Tribeca Grill restaurant downstairs. When he’s not chasing down leads or compiling evidence for his well-heeled clients, he’s also been known to show up in a movie or TV show. In addition to The Irishman, he’s also appeared as a "burly man" in the film The Way Back and a police officer in the Sopranos prequel The Many Saints of Newark. The renowned New York bail bondsman Ira Judelson calls him a real hound dog and says he’s the best at what he does. “When you hire Jimmy you get Jimmy. A lot of times when you hire different firms, they will farm it out to other people. But when I get involved in a case with Jimmy it's always him calling me back. That's hands on. I trust him completely."

Ten Puzzle Mysteries To Read If You

Plan On Solving Cain’s Jawbone

First published in 1934, Edward Powys Mathers’ mystery Cain's Jawbone is a fiendishly difficult literary puzzle that has only ever been solved by a handful of people. Recently, the novel suddenly became a hot commodity when a popular TikTok user began charting her own attempt to crack the case, which involves reordering the 100 pages of the scrambled murder mystery to determine whodunnit. As C.J. Connor wrote last week for Book Riot, “Of all the things that can be said about Cain’s Jawbone, you can’t call its intricate plot or the painstaking process of investigating it for yourself boring. If you’re a newcomer to puzzle mysteries, starting with this one can be asking for disappointment. It’s not for lack of trying, after all, that so few have cracked it. You’ll want to work yourself up to it by reading plenty of satisfying, yet puzzling mysteries and building your deductive reasoning skills.” With this in mind, Connor has compiled a list of 10 mysteries that involve particularly clever and puzzling plots. Some are self-aware of their difficulty and the genre itself, offering a metafictional narrative or themed premise that can be entertaining for more seasoned mystery fans. New mystery genre readers, too, will enjoy honing their armchair sleuthing skills with each book.

Coming September 12:

INDIGO ROAD

“Indigo Road is a beautifully wrought, hard-biting story with elements of classic noir presented through a prism of modern sensibilities. A fantastic read.” –S.A. Cosby, bestselling author of Razorblade Tears 

While still slinging drinks fulltime at The Sandbar in Folly Beach, Jack Connor works a side gig as a licensed bounty hunter. One afternoon, as he's transporting his latest bail skip named Willis Ronson back to jail, his SUV is ambushed by a team of gunmen, killing Ronson instantly and seriously injuring his court-appointed attorney, Alisha Dupree. Connor can’t help but poke around the edges of the deadly incident and quickly learns that Ronson was a man of many secrets, including a mysterious woman from his past who has caused him to be sucked into a domestic terrorist fringe group.