The Mobster's Lament (City Blues Quartet)

Ray Celestin heads to New York City, for the third book in his award-winning City Blues quartet, The Mobster’s Lament.

New York, 1947. Private Investigator Ida Davis has been called from Chicago by her old friend Michael’s daughter, Maeve, to investigate a miscarriage of justice case. A young man has been framed for a killing spree in a Harlem flophouse, and is set to receive the death penalty for a crime he didn’t commit. But as they delve into the case, Ida and Maeve realize the murders in the flophouse were part of a much greater series of killings spanning decades and continents.

Whilst in the city, Ida reconnects with her old friend Louis Armstrong, and discovers him at his lowest ebb. His big band is bankrupt, he’s playing to empty venues, and he’s pretty much a has-been, until a promoter approaches him with a strange offer to reignite his career . . .

Meanwhile, nightclub manager and mob fixer Monk Lattner is tasked by the ‘boss of all bosses’, Frank Costello, to track down some money which was left in the city by the recently deceased mobster, and founder of Las Vegas, Bugsy Siegel. Monk goes on a journey through the underbelly of New York in search of the money, and uncovers a conspiracy stretching all the way to the top of society, that brings him into contact with Ida and Maeve, and forces him to confront demons from his own harrowing past . . .

Celestin’s third instalment in his City Blues quartet shows New York City during one of the most pivotal moments in its history – from its dive bars to its luxury apartments; its merchant-barons to its low-lifes – and the rise of the mob to the height of its power.