Customer Reviews

Desire Street: A True Story of Death and Deliverance in New Orleans

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Desire Street is going to freak out a few true-crime readers. (From some of the comments here, I guess it already has.) That's because it breaks all the rules. It pushes the envelope: a murder mystery that doesn't tell you what you have to think. (You actually have to figure it out yourself.); hard-assed, hard-boiled writing that doesn't think readers are too stupid to know some big words; a picture of a racist system but where no one wears a sheet over their head or burns a cross. (Racism these days is subtler than that.) Ever since I read "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil," I have been waiting for something like this. It's set in New Orleans, instead of Savannah, and instead of Johnny Mercer in the background it's got Harry Connick. But it's just as rich. You may disagree with Desire Street, but you need to read it if you want to know where true crime is going. There's a lot more going on here than the usual book. Partly that's because there's more going on here than crime. But I couldn't put it down. And it's been the same reaction from friends of mine.

Dolores Dye, a feisty, attractive, white, middle class grandmother, 60 years old and an ex-rodeo rider, lies dying in a supermarket parking lot, blood and brain fluid pooling beneath her, while her assailant, a young, dark-black man from one of the darkest city underbellies in America, a professional criminal by birth, brazenly maneuvers her red Ford into the line of cars exiting the lot before casually pulling out and vanishing into the thickening traffic: a murder in broad daylight, with eye-witnesses; a purse-snatching gone bad; a brutal, stupid, cowardly crime about to fan the racist flames in cops and prosecutors alike in a city already ablaze with white-flight and its attendant fear and loathing.

So begins Jed Horne's "Desire Street," subtitled "A True Story of Death and Deliverance in New Orleans," a 14-year saga of a dark crime brought slowly and painfully into light and focus. Not really a whodunit, but with the rolling thunder feel of one, its plot unfolding ever more surprisingly, and not a "private-eye" subterranean journey, but with more windows into worlds forbidden or otherwise inaccessible than that genre ever afforded, "Desire Street" draws us into the ghostly half-life of slum-warren junkies' somnolent predation, perverse symbiotic relationships of detectives and snitches, Death house despair, the layered world all the way up, finally, to the pristine and delicate machinations of Federal Supreme Court maneuverings.

We generally read non-fiction to learn stuff: how the world connects and works. But we tend to turn to fiction, with its comforting circles of clarity and closure, to story us through lives too often apparently just one damned thing after another. And if we're told non-fiction is the art of the age, we may darkly suspect that this may be related to the death of the American imagination, our curious confusion of fact with truth. How startling then to discover such a pure work of non-fiction, the reportage so thorough and seamless as to be nearly invisible, that also has the reverb and mythical splendor of a Faulkner tale.

I am tempted to call "Desire Street" hardboiled non-fiction, but it is too scrupulously written for that, too elegant, with almost a poet's sense of efficiency, rhythm and the mot juste: not a syllable sensationalized or self-indulgent; no conjecture or surmise; just facts and deeply understood characters marshaled with the almost invisible touch of a masterful storyteller possessed of a great journalist's eye and penchant for legwork. In this last regard, this is also clearly a work of great courage, at many levels. And it begets characters that get up and walk around in your head on your way to the drugstore or supermarket, haunting characters that "cast long shadows" as Faulkner liked to say.

It is a story that has found its perfect teller in a veteran journalist, long-time resident of the French Quarter, and City Editor of New Orleans' great old newspaper, The Times-Picayune, for whom truth has been a long-time, habitual pursuit. It is the story of twisted, old, cruel, beautiful New Orleans, a tale of bad men, bad cops, bad prosecutors; but then it is a story of good men, even those who have done bad things, good women, good, even brilliant lawyers and jurists, and of a Supreme Court ruling that truly brought greater justice to American courts. So finally it is a story of America, where justice, however fuzzy and far off, is still a dream for the few who still dare dream it.

I had read this book one week prior to Hurricane Katrina and the failure of the canals. Desire Street, covers the New Orleans judicial and police systems in regard to a murder of a white woman in a supermarket parking lot by a black who framed an innocent black for the murder. The journalist put forth a fairly objective story line which took the reader deep into the 9th ward and the lives of the people we saw portrayed on our TV screens this week. Though I read it because we have Sister Prejean coming to town next week and I wanted to expand my opinions. Having read it prior to Hurricane Katrina made what was portrayed by the newscasts even more poignant and heart wrenching. If you want to better understand the pulse of what once was, New Orleans you'd be wise to put this book in your cart.

The book's about Curtis Kyles, who was freed from Death Row in Angola after the Supreme Court reviewed his trial and decided that if all the evidence had been presented he wouldn't have been convicted. The police and the DA's office are supposed to give the defense lawyers all the evidence they uncover, but in this case they kept silent any info that didn't help prove the railroaded defendent was guilty. He was set up by a rival criminal in the neighborhood who was a police informant. The police actually gave him a regular paycheck in exchange for info on crimes. The book is interesting because it doesn't paint the exonerated man, Curtis Kyles, as an innocent man. It goes into all his criminal activity, selling drugs, selling stolen goods, and robbing people on the street. I think that he had planned to sell the gun and other items from the crime, the shooting death of an older lady out shopping at a discount grocery store in broad daylight. The police informant was found driving around in the dead lady's car, and soon pinned the killing on Curtis. After 4 trials with hung juries, the DA in New Orleans, Henry Connick, Jr's dad, conceded defeat and Curtis was allowed to go free. The book is written by a local newspaper reporter and does a good job describing the racism in the city. The book describes in detail life inside the Orleans Parish Prison, the local New Orleans jail full of violence and rapes, and on death row in Angola.

Jed Horne's DESIRE STREET is that book: the one we want to curl up with, the one that can take us away, the one that remains in our minds for a very long time. In rich nuanced prose, Horne tells the mind-boggling story of Curtis Kyles, a black man accused of murdering a white woman in racially charged New Orleans. Incredibly, Kyles goes to trial five times for this one murder because juries just can't seem to agree whether or not he is guilty. Horne puts us right into Kyles's New Orleans, mean streets filled with love and family as much as with crime and poverty. And by brilliantly weaving together details about the police investigations and trials of Curtis Kyles, Horne reveals that in the New Orleans criminal justice system that old saying is truer than ever: "In the halls of justice, the justice is in the halls." DESIRE STREET is true crime, real life, and a book that once read will not be forgotten.

This book is simply fabulous and anyone who has ever been to New Orleans, wanted to, or plans to has got to read it. I finished it in about 16 hours, and the last time I did that was for Da Vinci code (I know, I know, I'm not proud about it). The characters are rich and detailed, the story is riveting, and the writing is unique and refreshing.

Warning: If you are looking for pulp fiction, this book isn't for you (I think the local grocery store check-out counter still maintains that monopoly). If books with too many words turn you off, turn on the tube. But if you are looking for a vibrant tale of New Orlean's secret codes of conduct, and one of the most interesting crime stories in New Orleans history, buy this book!

"CSI" and shows like that make people think solving crimes is done with a computer or a microscope. But in the real world, whether you are guilty or go free is mostly about "reasonable doubt" in the mind of the jury. "Desire Street" is the anti-CSI. There's no DNA to prove whether Curtis Kyles killed this woman down in New Orleans. It's about shades of gray, not black and white. It's not an open-and-shut case even after you've shut the book. "Desire Street" is about the real world, well, New Orleans anyway - which is a very strange place. It's about how cops are so hooked up with their police informants on the street that they sometimes let the informants get away with worse crimes than they are using them to solve. It's an incredible book because it's true. Also, this writer writes like an angel (angel of death, maybe.) Not for everyone, but no serious crime readers can skip this one.

I just finished reading this book. It Is an excellent, and largely unbiased, account of Curtis Lee Kyles, the man behind the watershed US Supreme Court case Kyles v. Whitely. Kyles, African American, was tried for the 1984 robbery and murder of a white grandmother outside a grocery store in New Orleans. After the jury hung the first time, the case retried and Kyles was convicted and given a death sentence. Only after it was found out how much evidence the DA suppressed evidence did Kyles get a reversal of his conviction by the US Supreme court in 1995. Kyles is then tried 3 more times, with hung juries each time. In 1998 the DA dismissed the case because he knew that he would never get a conviction.

This is not a simple story of guilt and innocence, nor is it some crazy liberal rant against the death penalty. It certainly is not a polemic with an agenda. In fact, it is probably one of the most honest accounts of a criminal case I have ever seen, where a person could very well be guilty, but there is nonetheless reasonable doubt. This book is a study in what reasonable doubt means in real life terms. Horne makes it clear that he seriously thinks Kyles may have been the killer, but the sloppiness of the DA and the lies of the police, as well as the clear agenda of the prosecution team, results in multiple injustices. With each successive trial the truth becomes more and more murky, frustrated by the politics of crime, race, and the death penalty. Not only is no one convicted of the killing of Mrs. Dye, but the snitch (Beanie) crucial to convicting Kyles gets to walk away from a murder he committed. No one is spared the harsh light of truth - not even the jury foreman of the last prosecution, who comes out terribly flawed. Kyles is portrayed not as an innocent victim of the system, but as a predator who likely would have killed someone anyway.

The postscript to the story is that in 2010 Kyles was arrested for a NEW murder of different circumstances. Thanks to Kyles v. Whitely, he is now more likely t get a fair trial the first time. Read this book. You will not be disappointed.

It is a sad comment on society that when you cruise through Amazon books there seems to be a growing list of books about the wrongly convicted/freed from death row.

Well this book is more than just the latest addition. It is a well reported and straightforwardly written story that should freighten us all. Jed Horme does a nice job of setting the stage in New Orleans by a well written background about the role of poverty and wealth in this racially diverse but also racially divided city.

The author's writing is not overly suspenseful, nor does it overwhelm the story that is being told. it is straight forward and to the point allowing the story to move itself along through the many unusual turns of the case.

Overall a good read and I also recommend "A promise of Justice" and "Bloodsworth" for those who enjoy this book.

The life of Curtis Kyles is a cautionary tale of just how badly justice can misfire in the United States. In 1984 Kyles was convicted of murdering a woman during a robbery in New Orleans. Over the next fourteen years, Kyles endured five separate trials as he moved between the Orleans Parish prison and death row at Louisiana's Angola State Prison. Eventually, Kyles' case landed in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Author Jed Horne does a good job of creating a nuanced portrait of Kyles. Kyles was a hustler. At various points in his life, Kyles was a drug dealer, drug "mule," fence, and car thief. He survived by his wits in a world that will be unfamiliar to most readers. Kyles' rough upbringing helped him survive when he went to prison.

Desire Street is ruined by author Jed Horne; this book is "advocacy journalism" at its worst. While Horne portrays Kyles as a multifaceted human being, those who attempted to prosecute Kyles are one-dimensional villains.

Consider the following description of the background of a murderer who testified for Kyles in his final trial: "Wallace's problem was this: an offed guard. As the general prison population settled down to breakfast in 1972, someone in an otherwise empty dormitory had taken a blade in hand and tenderized a twenty-three-year-old guard named Brent Miller. Miller had grown up within the grounds of Angola, the son of a guard, the grandson of a guard, and, at least by reputation, as big a prick as could be found among the cadre of white turnkeys whose self-esteem depended on the systematic degradation of Angola blacks" (p. 285).

I cannot begin to fathom the pain that the "offed," "tenderized," "prick's" family must have felt if they read that description. The unsupported statement alleging a link between the guards' self esteem and their alleged brutal treatment of inmates is also typical of Horne's narrative. Desire Street is full personal attacks on anyone whose views of the Kyle case do not match Horne's views. The attacks were not needed; by any measure, "the system's" treatment of Kyles was shameful. Horne, however, has an axe to grind and he does so for 340 pages.

Curtis Kyles' life story is fascinating. It is unfortunate that Jed Horne is the one telling that story in Desire Street.