9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Good "Look For" Book, January 21, 2001
This review is from: Cajun Nights (Hardcover)
I feel a little silly writing a review of a book that is so out of print you may never find it again. But on the off-chance it comes back into print, this little write-up will be waiting for it.
Aside from the silly title (there are only two confirmed Cajun characters in the whole book and not a single cajun night), "Cajun Nights" is a wonderful book and a wonderful introduction to a short-lived series.
Kit Franklyn has been hired as a suicide investigator by the Orleans Parrish medical examiner, Andy Broussard, a no-nonsense, lemon-ball-popping eccentric. Her hiring is fortuitous, as New Orleans has been suffering a rash of murder-suicides that may or may not have been caused by a centuries-old curse.
Author D.J. Donaldson writes New Orleans as though he loves it - is descriptions of locations and familiar landmarks are careful and respectful. Using Kit, a relative newcomer to the city, her is able to introduce us to New Orleans in a way that is fresh and doesn't come off sounding like a travelogue.
Cajun Nights is an entertaining book that will keep you happily turning pages until the end. The plot seems far-fetched at first, but makes perfect sense by the time we reach the final page and Donaldson writes well without bogging us down in needless details.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
New Orleans - Sultry Nights, Swinging Jazz & Violent Murders, April 17, 2005
D. J. Donaldson's "Cajun Nights" is sadly out of print, HOWEVER, it is quite easy to buy a used copy. Try Amazon's Marketplace sellers, if you're interested. I read a review for the book, and since I always like a good mystery and love fiction set in New Orleans, I bought it. This is a taut, suspenseful novel, filled with interesting characters, a plot that will keep you riveted and just a tad of the supernatural. Remember, Voodoo arrived in New Orleans after a revolution in Haiti brought the Free People of Color to the city. Besides, if the setting is the Big Easy, magic must be involved. Author Donaldson has also managed to capture the charm of the bayou, the French Quarter, and lots of additional local color.
In New Orleans, 1738, a wealthy landowner, Albair Fauquel, and his Haitian slave, Malaqua, were hanged for using the dark arts to cast a spell over a prominent member of society. Fauquel's victim, apparently bewitched, murdered his family and committed suicide. Just before his death, with the noose chafing his neck, Fauquel cursed the city's citizens for wronging him. "But, I tell you this, one day I will return and right this wrong as I did the other. And the streets of this city will run with blood as friend slays friend, fathers slay their children, and rampant suicide sends the souls of men by the hundreds to everlasting hell. Beware the songs you loved in youth."
Present day, New Orleans - Dr. Kit Franklyn, a psychologist and the county's first suicide-research investigator, was just hired by Orleans Parish's Chief Medical Examiner, Andy Broussard, an aging gourmand who believes that a good meal with fine wine is better than sex, but prefers his work to either. He is superb at what he does, which includes detecting. Kit work will involve compiling psychological profiles of the decedent in cases where the physical evidence does not enable the examiner to determine whether death was accidental or suicide.
On the first day of Kit's job, she and Chief Broussard are called to the scene of a fire at a private home. It appears that Barry Hollins, a loving husband and father had just set himself ablaze, killing his wife, two year-old daughter, and mother-in-law in the process. It was not the mother-in-law's fault. He really liked her - REALLY! Hollins had no history of unhappiness, depression or instability. Within a short period, two more violent murder-suicides occur. Franklyn and Broussard are stumped at the sudden bizarre behavior. When Kit asks the deputy medical examiner to pull up some nationwide murder-suicide statistics, the results are startling, to say the least. Eerily, clues begin to appear which link the historic past to the present. Murder attempts are made against the two protagonists. And I couldn't figure out what was going on for the life of me. I was shocked at the "who" in the whodunit.
I have just ordered used copies of two other Andy Broussard/Kit Franklyn mysteries. So the book must be good.
JANA
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