![]() ![]() A man presumes that his Uncle, Vic Willing, died in the flood, but wants some closure around that fact since Vic basically just disappeared.įrom there, Claire plunges into the world of post-Katrina New Orleans, interacting with the corrupt justice system and foster system and street kids. ![]() The plot setup is as follows: fresh out of something like a nervous breakdown, Claire DeWitt receives a job offer in New Orleans, a city she hasn’t been back to since her teacher (who was a protege of the famous French Detective) was killed years before. In this world, the main character and her teacher and this famous detective work on named cases, like the Case of the Missing Miners or the Case of the Green Parrot, like something out of Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys. Her methods include use of the I Ching, hallucinogenic drugs and analyzing symbols in dreams. On the other hand, the main character is apparently a world famous detective, a protege once removed from an almost mythic French detective who wrote a single book called Détection that has a religious fervor about it in the corners of the world where people follow his teachings. The main character is a substance abusing train wreck, badly messed up even by the standards of the genre. New Orleans is painted as corrupt and profoundly dysfunctional. ![]() Almost every character in the book is still deeply traumatized by the storm and subsequent flood. On the one hand, it’s grounded in a grimy, desperate post-Katrina New Orleans. Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead is an odd book. ![]()
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