New Orleans Mourning


Book Description

When the smiling King of Carnival is killed at Mardi Gras, policewoman Skip Langdon is on the case. She knows the upper-crust family of the victim and that it hides more than its share of glittering skeletons. But nothing could prepare her for the tangled web of clues and ancient secrets that would mean danger for her--and doom for the St. Amants.... "Smith is a gifted writer." THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD




Jazz Funeral


Book Description

NEW ORLEANS JAZZFEST PRODUCER STABBED! TEENAGE SISTER MISSING!Everybody loved easygoing Ham Brocato, producer of the famed New Orleans JazzFest. So how did he end up stabbed to death on his kitchen floor?New Orleans Homicide Detective Skip Langdon just happens to be on hand when Ham's body is discovered in the middle of his own party the evening before the Fest. To complicate the already murky case, the victim's sixteen-year-old blues musician sister has disappeared, and Skip suspects that if the young woman isn't the murderer, she's in mortal danger from the person who is. So Task One is finding Melody, ambitious, unhappy at home, and determined to break from her family.In this tale of southern kinships gone awry, she's assisted by her long-distance love, Steve Steinman, and her gay landlord, Jimmy Dee. Meanwhile, Melody's dangerous yet exhilarating journey tugs at the heart and raises the pulse rate.




Five Days at Memorial


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The award-winning book that inspired an Apple Original series from Apple TV+ • A landmark investigation of patient deaths at a New Orleans hospital ravaged by Hurricane Katrina—and the suspenseful portrayal of the quest for truth and justice—from a Pulitzer Prize–winning physician and reporter “An amazing tale, as inexorable as a Greek tragedy and as gripping as a whodunit.”—Dallas Morning News After Hurricane Katrina struck and power failed, amid rising floodwaters and heat, exhausted staff at Memorial Medical Center designated certain patients last for rescue. Months later, a doctor and two nurses were arrested and accused of injecting some of those patients with life-ending drugs. Five Days at Memorial, the culmination of six years of reporting by Pulitzer Prize winner Sheri Fink, unspools the mystery, bringing us inside a hospital fighting for its life and into the most charged questions in health care: which patients should be prioritized, and can health care professionals ever be excused for hastening death? Transforming our understanding of human nature in crisis, Five Days at Memorial exposes the hidden dilemmas of end-of-life care and reveals how ill-prepared we are for large-scale disasters—and how we can do better. ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Chicago Tribune, Seattle Times, Entertainment Weekly, Christian Science Monitor, Kansas City Star WINNER: National Book Critics Circle Award, J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award, Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Ridenhour Book Prize, American Medical Writers Association Medical Book Award, National Association of Science Writers Science in Society Award




New Orleans Mourning


Book Description

A revealing glimpse into the hidden world of New Orleans high society and an intricately plotted murder mystery. The novel introduces rookie cop Skip Langdon, as she investigates a seamy Mardi Gras murder. Everyone in town is shocked when Chauncey St. Amant, a prominent citizen and this year's King of Carnival, is killed on his parade float by a shooter in a Dolly Parton get-up. Skip Langdon is assigned the case because of her own upper-crust background. Skip's investigation takes her deep into the Garden District to dig up the St. Amant family skeletons and a dangerous ancient secret.




The Kindness of Strangers


Book Description

"A BREATHLESS THRILLER . . . Smith pushes her protagonist to the breaking point and the series to a new high water mark of suspense." --Los Angeles Times On temporary leave of absence from the force, Police Detective Skip Langdon becomes obsessed with exposing the frightening figure beneath the good-guy image of Errol Jacomine--a liberal-minded, civic-spirited preacher who is running for mayor of New Orleans. Immediately, an anonymous army of hatchet men go to work on Skip, who learns that opposing Jacomine is dangerous business. And when the only witness to the preachers crimes turns up dead, Skip follows her instincts to the dark center of bayou country . . . where dead cops tell no tales. "Displays the writing skills of one of the genres leading exponents . . . The climax, a frantic rescue effort in the teeth of Hurricane Hannah, will stay with you." --The Cleveland Plain Dealer




New Orleans Beat


Book Description

Lady detective Skip Langdon goes after the killer of Geoffrey Kavanagh, a computer genius. In the process, she learns to navigate The Original Worldwide Network, a country-wide bulletin board service. By the author of Jazz Funeral.




Louisiana Bigshot


Book Description

Increasingly disturbed by her inability to uncover the true identity of an old friend, New Orleans private investigator and poet Talba Wallis takes on a suspicious new client and encounters an ugly secret in the small town of Clayton, Louisiana.




Strangers in Their Own Land


Book Description

The National Book Award Finalist and New York Times bestseller that became a guide and balm for a country struggling to understand the election of Donald Trump "A generous but disconcerting look at the Tea Party. . . . This is a smart, respectful and compelling book." —Jason DeParle, The New York Times Book Review When Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, a bewildered nation turned to Strangers in Their Own Land to understand what Trump voters were thinking when they cast their ballots. Arlie Hochschild, one of the most influential sociologists of her generation, had spent the preceding five years immersed in the community around Lake Charles, Louisiana, a Tea Party stronghold. As Jedediah Purdy put it in the New Republic, "Hochschild is fascinated by how people make sense of their lives. . . . [Her] attentive, detailed portraits . . . reveal a gulf between Hochchild's 'strangers in their own land' and a new elite." Already a favorite common read book in communities and on campuses across the country and called "humble and important" by David Brooks and "masterly" by Atul Gawande, Hochschild's book has been lauded by Noam Chomsky, New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu, and countless others. The paperback edition features a new afterword by the author reflecting on the election of Donald Trump and the other events that have unfolded both in Louisiana and around the country since the hardcover edition was published, and also includes a readers' group guide at the back of the book.




Crescent City Kill


Book Description

Skip Langdon, a New Orleans police detective, encounters death in her own hometown when the local police superintendent is gunned down and then the murderer is killed by a group who goes by the name of "the Jury."




New Orleans Noir


Book Description

This original anthology of noir fiction set across the Big Easy includes new stories by Ace Atkins, Laura Lippman, Maureen Tan, and more. New Orleans has always the home of the lovable rogue, the poison magnolia, the bent politico, and the heartless con artist. And in post-Katrina times, it’s the same old story—only with a new breed of carpetbagger thrown in. In other words, it’s fertile ground for noir fiction. This sparkling collection of tales, set both before and after the storm, explores the city’s gutted neighborhoods, its outwardly gleaming “sliver by the river,” its still-raunchy French Quarter, and other hoods so far from the Quarter they might as well be on another continent. It also looks back into the city’s darkly colorful, nineteenth century past. New Orleans Noir includes brand-new stories by Ace Atkins, Laura Lippman, Patty Friedmann, Barbara Hambly, Tim McLoughlin, Olympia Vernon, David Fulmer, Jervey Tervalon, James Nolan, Kalamu ya Salaam, Maureen Tan, Thomas Adcock, Jeri Cain Rossi, Christine Wiltz, Greg Herren, Julie Smith, Eric Overmyer, and Ted O’Brien. A portion of the profits from New Orleans Noir will be donated to Katrina KARES, a hurricane relief program sponsored by the New Orleans Institute that awards grants to writers affected by the hurricane.