I enjoy reading mysteries and I love the Crescent City so I snapped up this book to read as soon as I saw it listed on one of the “best” lists at the end of 2011.
A missing person from Hurricane Katrina brings private detective Claire DeWitt back to New Orleans where she’s obliged to confront her messy past. If this sounds formulaic, believe me, this novel is anything but that.
Claire’s methodology involves dreams, the I-Ching and an unusual French detective who wrote: “The mystery is not solved by the use of fingerprints or suspects or the identification of weapons. These things serve only to trigger the detective’s memory. The detective and the client, the victim and the criminal—all already know the solution to the mystery. They need only to remember it, and recognize it when it appears.”
The novel unravels layer upon layer of mysteries not the least of which is Claire herself. And, yes, I’m really eager for more of this rich character.
Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, 2011, 273 p.
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