New Orleans Nocturne: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Captivating
Review: A fine read that holds you until the very last page.

Rating:
Summary: Pathos, obsession, and inner human depths
Review: Adroitly written by Jillian McCade, New Orleans Nocturne is a compelling novel of pathos, obsession, and inner human depths. Julia Grant is a woman who fled to the festive city to escape her past, only to find it gradually catching up with her, permeating her new life and her new friends, while a wise yet reserved voodoo mamba named Sister Lula watches it all. New Orleans Nocturne is highly recommended as an original, darkly twisted, deeply satisfying story.

Rating:
Summary: Secrets in the Big Easy
Review: New Orleans Nocturne by Jillian McCade is a new entry in the ever-growing list of New Orleans-based mysteries, one that is sure to be of interest to fans of soap operas and catty fem-fiction a la Danielle Steele. It's a novel of secrets. It's a novel of murder. But mostly, it's a novel of endless lunch dates and soirees with our society friends and the token man of questionable sexuality.

Narrated by Julia Grant, a newcomer to the French Quarter scene, the novel unfolds like a confessional. Julia addresses the reader as though she were sitting across from her, relating the novel's events as though in an excited whisper, detailing past crimes, guilty consciences and extramarital affairs galore.
Julia settles into her new life quickly, being accepted by local society due to the fact that she is able to do a kindness to one of the inner circle at a restaurant. All goes awry, however, when two new characters appear on the scene - Cain Degnan and Katherine Lincoln -one intent on forcing Julia out of the circle and the other bent on protecting her at any cost.

Author McCade's prose is unpolished, but promising. Throughout, she commits the new writer's error of having each character speaking say the name of the character she is addressing in nearly every paragraph, as though the reader might forget who is speaking and to whom the comment is addressed. McCade must learn to trust her readers more.

Another glaring problem is McCade's lack of differentiation between description and dialog. Only an insufferable drama queen might describe her sister's suicide in highly descriptive language, detailing the way her body swung lightly in the breeze, but even the milder characters should be fined by the adjective police.

My final observation is that the "surprise" ending is so coincidental as to be amusing rather than shocking or revealing.
Overall, this was an entertaining book and a good introduction to the New Orleans scene. McCade obviously has lived in the areas about which she writes and her enthusiasm is infectious.

I'd read another of her books any time.