Ah, New Orleans. The drug that is the heat and scents, the music and moans, life and death and destiny. The heart of a world both magical and profane. Where “church ladies” still wear hats and movements in the dark often presage the advent of violence and death.Julie Smith knows New Orleans. She knows it beauty and it’s darkness. The sound of a young girls voice, raised in a pure gospel song. The poverty, the loss, the scent of fresh blood and death. Julie first caught my attention with “New Orleans Mourning” and that attention has never wavered. Her words paint the soul of New Orleans and it’s people, a painting by Diane Millsap rendered into nouns and verbs, vibrant and thrumming with life.Julie’s newest character, The Baroness de Pontalba, also known as PI Eddie Valentino’s humble assistant Talba Wallis, is one of those characters I find myself instantly liking. A smart, sassy computer geek with potential to spare – if only she could drag herself out of New Orleans and find a real job. Living with mamma, Miz Clara, is fine and dandy with the Baroness, but she really has to get a job. When she does, with the erstwhile Eddie Valentino, what happens is by turn exciting, terrifying, funny and fascinating. It is, all-in-all, exactly what I would expect from the amazing Julie Smith.When I have gone looking for new books by Julie, I have always searched for “Skip Langdon” by name, her famous New Orleans policewoman character. Therefore, I have missed the Talba Wallis series, a situation I have every intention of rectifying immediately. Talba is smart and accomplished, but she is also deeply damaged by a past she cannot remember and that no one seems to want to fill her in on. As she begins to have flashes of memory regarding her early life, the seemingly simple case she is working on with Eddie heats up to something that quickly spins out of control. The story is by turns heartbreaking and uplifting and I look forward with great eagerness to read the next installment and the next.
I've always enjoyed Julie Smith's series featuring New Orleans policewoman Skip Langdon, so I was happy to see a new series from Smith. This is different. Main character Talba Wallis is a poet who writes and performs her work as the Baroness of Pontalba. She's also in need of a job that challenges her and uses her skills to pay the bills, so she answers an ad placed by p.i. Eddie Valentino. Valentino decides to take her on as an apprentice (she's worked for another p.i. before), and Talba immediately gets thrust into the middle of a complicated case. Very good!
What do You think about Louisiana Hotshot (2013)?
The first in Edgar-winner Julie Smith's Talba Wallis series. Talba is a sassy and sometimes-scared brand-new detective. She is also a performing poet in New Orleans' multi-colorful café society. Goaded into a day job by her pushy mom, she finds herself employed by Eddie Valentino, but to be a paper-pusher, not a detective. Of course she becomes P.I. by default, hunting a man who seduces teenage black girls and may be making them disappear. At the same time she is haunted by disturbing flashbacks.
—Ellen
At one level - a fun and over-the-top detective novel about a PI in New Orleans. At another level, I found deeper elements that made a big impact. What touched me the most was the vivid description of PI Talba Wallis's response to family - her sense of outsiderhood, and the very keenly observed trajectory she followed when triggered (into her shell). Plus the way she slowly works herself out of the withdrawal.On the other hand, there were times when I felt as if some of her blackness was almost painted on. I'm curious whether anybody else felt this way. What I thought the writer did well was to observe the way white people responded and reacted to the black characters including Talba.
—Mish Middelmann
