Storm Damage

Kovacs’s gritty debut, the first in a series set in post-Katrina New Orleans, introduces PI Cliff St. James. Some six months earlier, on the night the Category Five hurricane hit the city, Cliff, then a cop on his last shift for the NOPD, was at a crime scene—the Tiki Hut bar, where a friend of his, building inspector Sam Siu, lay on the floor, shot in the back of the head. Cliff left before the huge storm swept away the Tiki Hut with the body. Now Sam’s grown daughter, Twee Siu, wants Cliff to find out why her father was killed. Nearly everybody connected to the murder investigation has something to hide, including Twee, who’s holding back key information; Sam’s druggie girlfriend and bar manager, Kiesha Taylor; corrupt former New Orleans mayor Marlin Duplessis; and Vietnamese gang leader Jimmy Nguyen. Cliff takes plenty of knocks, but proves as resilient as New Orleans in this action-filled crime novel. (Dec.)