BOOK REVIEW: THE AXEMAN’S JAZZ by Ray Celestin

Shane | 12 September 2015 | Reply

BOOK REVIEW: THE AXEMAN’S JAZZ by Ray Celestin
Pan MacMillan
May 2014
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
8 ½ / 10

It’s 1919 and New Orleans is scared. With Mardi Gras cancelled due to the Great War and a serial killer roaming the streets at night, tensions are on a razor’s edge. There’s tension in the New Orleans P.D. as well, with Detective Lieutenant Michael Talbot ostracised from his compatriots due to what is, for the times, his unusual methods (he refuses to accept bribes and has jailed his former mentor Detective Luca d’Andrea) and living arrangements (he’s married to and has children with a coloured woman).

d’Andrea is released from jail just as The Axeman writes an open letter to the local newspaper claiming to be a demon sent to Earth to wreak havoc, and is sent by local mafia boss to catch the Axeman to stop him hurting their business.

It’s not just Talbot and d’Andrea after the murderer – young coloured girl Ida works at the famous Pinkerton Agency of investigators as a receptionist but is desperate to make a name for herself as an investigator, so sets out to solve the mystery herself, enlisting the help of a young bugle player Lewis Armstrong (later to be rechristened Louis – ring any bells?).

Based on real events involving the officially unsolved crime of The Axeman Of New Orleans, Celestin reprints the actual letter the real Axeman sent to the papers, in which he claims to be a jazz nut and promises anyone listening to a jazz band on one night next week shall live. In the novel the population sieze the threat with both hands, funnelling their anxiety and fear, as well as the suppressed party atmosphere that the war has cast a pall over, and the night is a raucous release for most of the city – except our three investigators, who all get close to solving the mystery and could have made an unstoppable team with their talents pooled.

Exhaustively researched down to the finest detail, The Axeman’s Jazz is a superlatively written historical whodunit which is a joy to read.