Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead by Sara Gran Series: Claire DeWitt Mysteries #1
Published by HighBridge on June 2, 2011
Source: Library
Genres: Mystery
Length: 8 hrs 40 mins
Pages: 273
Format: Audiobook
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Claire DeWitt is not your average private investigator. She has brilliant skills of deduction and is an ace at discovering evidence. But Claire also uses her dreams, omens, and mind-expanding herbs to help her solve mysteries, and relies on Détection—the only book published by the great and mysterious French detective Jacques Silette before his death.
The tattooed, pot-smoking Claire has just arrived in post-Katrina New Orleans, the city she’s avoided since her mentor, Silette’s student Constance Darling, was murdered there. Claire is investigating the disappearance of Vic Willing, a prosecutor known for winning convictions in a homicide-plagued city. Has an angry criminal enacted revenge on Vic? Or did he use the storm as means to disappear? Claire follows the clues, finding old friends and making new enemies—foremost among them Andray Fairview, a young gang member who just might hold the key to the mystery.
Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead is not my typical mystery read. The problem is simple enough. Her client, Leon, wants her to find his Uncle Vic, an assistant district attorney who disappeared during Hurricane Katrina. But Claire is not a conventional detective, Vic was not always a nice guy, and New Orleans is suffering from post-traumatic-stress disorder.
Claire follows Jacques Silette and his manual, Détection. It’s about recognizing clues not finding them, about allowing connections to reveal themselves. Claire is guided by the typical interviews and clues, but also visions, dreams, and drug-induced states. It’s slower moving for a mystery and we get bits and pieces of her background and what brought her to where she is now, both mentally and physically.
New Orleans is a character in and of itself. Katrina has devastated the city and recovery is slow. It’s a dark violent place for the people Claire interacts with, but it’s also where they belong.
It’s engrossing and a bit surreal. The mystery is well done, but it also asks you to think about mystery and life and purpose and fate. On the other hand, it can be racists and pretentious.
About Sara Gran
Sara Gran is the author of the novels The Book of The Most Precious Substance, Marigold, Dope, Come Closer, Saturn’s Return to New York, and the Claire DeWitt series.
Her work has been published in over a dozen countries and as many languages. She also writes for TV and film and occasionally writes other things.
Born and raised in Brooklyn, now living in California, Ms. Gran has worked with books as a writer, bookseller, and collector for most of her career.
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