City of the Dead

Sara Gran

Based in the rubble-strewn wasteland of post-hurricane New Orleans, tattooed, drug and alcohol infused Claire DeWitt is anything but a traditional female fictional detective. The deadpan prose and dialogue cuts deep and captures a city’s soul in the ravaged world of the so-called Katrina survivors. The reader really feels the pain and post-traumatic stress of both city and sleuth in this gritty, off-beat novel.

Extract

'The first thing you need to know about being a detective,' Constance explained when she was interviewing me to be her assistant, 'is that no one will ever like you again. You will turn over their stones and solve their crimes and reveal their secrets and they will hate you for it. If you're stupid enough to marry, your husband will never trust you. Your friends will never relax around you. Your family will shut you out. The police, of course, will loathe you. Your clients will never forgive you for telling them the truth. Everyone pretends they want their mysteries solved but no one does.' She leaned toward me. I smelled her violet perfume, her expensive face powder. 'No one except us.'

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