That may be my favorite street name in New Orleans, Tennessee Williams and Streetcar notwithstanding. Santa Fe bills itself as "The City Different," but New Orleans really is different. Santa Fe very consciously plays to its self-defined image for the tourists - or the image defined by the vast host of flatland foreigners who have made it completely unaffordable to actual natives. New Orleans and New Orleanians (is that what they call themselves?) just keep on doing their own thing; on the one hand appearing to be oblivious of the tourists, and on the other, cheerfully taking their money.
It's a great setting for hard-boiled detective stories. There is the city itself, with its very distinctive character and personality. There is the mix of cultures. There is the pervasive influence of the history of the city and the various groups, cultural and political, which have made it what it is. There is the geographical setting and its features, the low-lying land and the love/hate/fear relationship of the population with the water that provides the elements of the area's lifestyle and cuisine - and threatens to take back the entire region at a moment's notice.
Dave Robicheaux is a homicide detective and hangs out with a former cop turned PI. There are several things going on in this story, but the central story focuses on a long missing blues musician. You don't get much more New Orleans than that.
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