Another extraordinary tale from the author about early 1900's New Orleans life. The reader is taken back in time with vivid scenes of life in Storyville. All of a sudden jazz players from one five piece band start being murdered. The death toll increases as the rooming house landylady where one of the musicians had lived is also done away with. Then, the beautiful mistress of one of the victims, who had sought refuge with Creole Private Investigator Valentic St. Cyr, is killed. Madams of sporting houses that have paid off police are further extorted by someone. The beautiful former octoroon concubine of St. Cyr is threatened with the exposure of a deep dark secret from her past. St. Cyr's nemesis police lieutenant J. Picot plays a surprising role as he attempts to stifle St. Cyr's investigation. Top notch page turner.

I have enjoyed the entire series. Solid detective series. Unique setting and characters.

As if he had actually been there, David Fulmer manages to sucessfully bring me to old New Orleans. I just love his books, it says a lot when I feel sadness when the book is over.

I love the music history included - what a treat!

New Orleans seems a natural setting for the ever-growing mystery genre. Working my way through James Lee Burke, Robert Skinner, Ace Atkins, James Sallis and others, I discovered David Fulmer. Fulmer's second Valentin St. Cyr novel is as compelling as the first, and for quasi musicians like myself, dusted with enough references to musicians, locales, and songs of the time to add a delightful layer of authenticity to the storyline. Given St. Cyr's background, the reader has no problem with his close friendships with Buddy Bolden (Chasing) or Jelly Roll Morton (Jass). Fulmer adds enough historical detail about the New Orleans of the 1900s, that we can almost imagine what "Storyville" looked like, sounded like, and what the lives of the "fallen angels" WAS like. Likewise, we watch street musicians, whorehouse piano players, and small orchestras create "jazz" right in front of our eyes. Fulmer is able to make his novels near-graphic without lowering them to the level explicity we sometimes see on TV. St. Cyr is a dangerous man in a dangerous "district" who knows how to handle himself, yet, like most of us, he has self doubts and and fears which make him human.

I GREATLY look forward to reading Rampart Street.

My only complaint with Jass is a slight loss of verisimilitude: I'm not sure that police cars (there weren't many CARS at the time) had "sirens" and Gibson (guitars)didn't introduce the Kalamazoo line (as played by Jeff Mumford) until the late 1920s/early 1930s.

I ran across the first of David Fulmer's Valentin St. Cyr novels, Chasing the Devil's Tail, a year or so ago when it was just out in paperback. I bought it on a whim, and enjoyed the mix of atmosphere, history, Jazz, and New Orleans a hundred years ago enough that when a second book appeared, I immediately picked it up. I wasn't disappointed with the story: it's the sort of book that you'll think about for a good long while.

Valentin is still living in his relatively luxurious apartment on Magazine Street, still working security for Mr. Anderson, who runs Storyville, and still living with Justine, the girl he rescued in Devil's Tail. As this book opens, an old friend calls for him, demanding that he investigate the killings of several jazz musicians in New Orleans.

St. Cyr's friend turns out to be the renowned Jelly Roll Morton, a friend through St. Cyr's childhood friendship with King Bolden, the originator of Jazz and a character in the first book. Morton has suspicions that the musicians who've been killed have been playing in tony New Orleans, and that someone is opposed to them luring young whites into the dance halls they play. St. Cyr is originally skeptical, but when a bass-player-turned-preacher turns up dead, St. Cyr realises there's a much more sinister thread through all of this: the men were all members of a particular band some years before. It seems someone's after these particular jazz players, not all of them in general.

Fulmer seems very knowledgeable about the early roots of his sub-text, the music that was called "jass" at the time, which morphed into "jazz" later. His portrait of New Orleans at the turn of the last century rings true, his characters are interesting and well-rounded, and the whole story hangs together rather well. I enjoyed this book thoroughly, and look forward to Rampart Street, the next entry in the series.