In 1909, Storyville is filled with rounders and criminals of all sorts and musicians have been known to enjoy the natural vices of women, drugs and gambling as well as any man. Someone is systematically killing black "Jass" players in Storyville, the red-light district of Louisiana.
When Jelly Roll Morton calls in Valentin St. Cyr, head of security for Tom Anderson, "The King of Storyville", St. Cyr doesn't attribute anything more cryptic to the deaths than a few musicians meeting an inevitable fate, engaged in dangerous pursuits. However, once Jelly Roll plants the seed of doubt, the former police detective monitors unfolding events with a nagging sense of unease. When all the musicians involved are connected to the same band and the only one still alive has gone into hiding, St.Cyr comes to the realization that something sinister may indeed be afoot. The detective digs in his heels, as is his nature, when both the police and the mayor demand that St. Cyr back off from the direction of the investigation.
The author uses the vernacular of the early 1900's, describing the infamous Storyville with the colorful adjectives of dissolution, profit and notoriety that so define the District. St Cyr has compassion for the women who endure the rigorous nights of Storyville, a life that seduces the young and beautiful, but exists for the pleasures of men of power and wealth. In this world, the bright lights of revelry fade to the devastating poverty and rampant crime exposed in the light of day.
Risk comes naturally to St Cyr, although he may have lost his edge lately, given to self-pity and too much drinking, personal relationships besieged with problems. But his well-honed instincts remain intact. Refusing to be intimidated by the easy violence of Anderson's rounders, the detective prowls the familiar alleys and bawdy houses, pushed to examine some of his own failings in the process. The bright lights and drunken laughter fade into the black depths of depravity as St. Cry uncovers some ugly truths that put his own future in jeopardy. The plaintive notes of musicians catch fire, as jass seduces the night, a plaintive refrain for senseless killings born of one fateful rampage, a heady mix of music, sex and drugs.
This novel portrays Storyville at its height of notoriety, where graft and greed happily coexist with beautiful women of all hues, painted and gilded for men's pleasure, where every desire can be accommodated, even the oblivion found at the end of a needle. This is a society that exists with its own mores, its own rules of conduct. St. Cyr is familiar with these streets, well-known to the few who wield the power and protect the clandestine acts of murderers; the dark covers a multitude of sins. But more powerful and seductive than any vice, a new kind of music, jass, wails through the midnight hours, refusing to be silenced in the agony of birth. Luan Gaines/2005.
