Ray Celestin: Dead Man Blues, 9781447258919, 12, 99, Mantle / Pan Macmillan

Last year I stumble across this new crime writer and reviewed “The Axeman’ Jazz” which ended up winning the CWA New Blood Dagger Award, much deservedly to my delight.  I was overjoyed to discover that Ray Celestine’s   second book which he is planning to turn into a four part series was out already. 

When one likes the first books so very much, you always wonder whether the author can pull it off again but I can tell you:  “Dead Man Blues” is just as good as “Axeman’s Jazz”.  Instead of New Orleans, the second book  is set in Chicago,  charting the history of Jazz and the Mob in the Twenties making it not only a great mystery but providing plenty of information about the days of Bronzeville, the speak easies, Al Capone and his gang and the music scene in this vibrant time of the city.  I just gobbled it all up.

The same protagonists from “Axeman’s Jazz”,   Ida Davis and Michael Tabot, now Pinkerton detectives are the main characters in “Dead Man Blues” but the book has three storylines running parallel which all come together in the end.  The plot turns so many corners that it is a good idea to stay with the book in order not to lose the strings and names running parallel. I would be a great spoil sport if I started to review exact details but fear not, I will not spoil your reading fun.

It is the summer of 1926 in Chicago and a group of corrupt politicians are poisoned with toxic champagne at a party in a famous Chicago hotel in the Black Belt.   At the same time as this event shakes up the city, Michael and Ida are hired by the mother of a missing heiress, Gwendolyn Van Haren ,  the young women seems to have vanished from the face of the earth as has her finance. Starting to dig around, they soon come across evidence suggesting  her fiancé was homosexual,  had a dark streak and was involved in some revolting activities which  Gwendolyn must have uncovered as she was about to break off the engagement.  His father , trying to marry his son off into one of Chicago’s  old society families now lacking the funds to live the lifestyle they are used to,  did not  acquire  his new riches  through ethical activities either ……

Gangster Dante Sanfelippo, a rum runner and heroin addict having fled to New York a few years ago, is called back by Al Capone with the order to unearth who might be behind the poisoning of the politicians, seriously threatening Capone’s bootlegging operations. Dante himself has a very personal interest to find the killers.

 A young crime scene photographer, Jacob Russo, is called in by the Chicago police to take shots of a gruesome murder. Jacob has taken many photographs of victims but he is unable to shake the image of the black man’s smashed in face and decides to embark on an investigation of his own.

As a back drop in the mystery, Ida’s friend Louis Armstrong is supplying her with crucial information snapped up during his gigs, playing in speak easies for gangsters and a growing chic, wealthy Chicago crowd discovering the thrill of Jazz, as Louis fame is beginning to rise.

Ray Celestin is a fantastic storyteller, he comes up with the greatest plots, all set around the Jazz scenes in the various cities.  I cannot wait to read the third book which he is thinking of setting in New York during the Forties.