The Devil's Muse

May 1, 2017
Loehfelm’s low-key fifth novel featuring New Orleans beat cop Maureen Coughlin (after 2016’s Let the Devil Out) finds the native New Yorker and rookie patrol officer working her first Mardi Gras. She has just pulled an emaciated man wearing nothing but hot pink zebra-print tights off the hood of an SUV. He’s obviously under the influence of a powerful hallucinogen, but when gunshots ring out nearby, Coughlin pushes through the crowds to find multiple people injured. Shortly thereafter, she’s notified that the junkie in the tights has died. In the chaotic hours that follow, Coughlin maneuvers through drunken revelers, an annoying street-level journalist with her own camera crew, and warring gang members to connect the mysteries of the shooting and the overdose. Fans of police procedurals will enjoy the grittiness of the narrative, but the relatively easy crime solving and the lack of any substantial character progression make this outing a bit formulaic. Agent: Barney Karpfinger, Karpfinger Agency.

May 1, 2017
A rookie New Orleans cop discovers that regular rules don't apply during Mardi Gras, when a shooting sets off a cascading series of violent events.Officer Maureen Coughlin knows working the parade route during Mardi Gras week is unlike any assignment she's had, and as the only newbie to the city's biggest party, she wants to make a good impression not only on her fellow officers, but on the public. Loehfelm (Let the Devil Out, 2016, etc.) simmers the various tensions--racial, police versus civilians, power struggles with the NOPD--like the finest of cooks stirring a pot of gumbo with a bomb in it. The first sign of trouble appears when a young man, high and dressed only in neon leggings, runs directly into an SUV. When Coughlin and her team try to ascertain what he's tripping on, their attention is diverted by the sounds of nearby shots. Reaching the scene, they find carnage: a man bleeding out in the street, a little girl hit in the leg, and an elderly woman drenched in blood on the curb. Making matters worse, there's an omnipresent camera crew, a bunch of YouTube documentarians trying to capture the "real" Mardi Gras. Once a suspect is identified and Coughlin takes off after him, the true mayhem begins, when she realizes the person she proudly apprehends is a known offender but an easy arrest is complicated by an unexpected death on the parade route, in-fighting within the department, and a crowd that's as ready to party as it is to beef with police. Loehfelm doesn't need showy murders or gory scenes to writes crime stories with grit that stay lodged in your brain and get under your skin in the best possible way.

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May 1, 2017

Following her stint with the FBI, Maureen Coughlin is back on the New Orleans police force. Her new assignment is to keep the peace during Mardi Gras, the Big Easy's greatest and wildest party. Maureen's evening starts with an altercation with a troubled man in pink zebra-striped tights, rapidly followed by a shooting. In the course of one night, Maureen and her fellow patrol cops must manage a crime scene, hunt down the shooter, and cope with thousands of revelers and an in-your-face YouTube documentary crew. The fifth installment in this award-winning series (after Let the Devil Out) is another riveting procedural. Setting, plot, and character are the essential components in this tough, smart crime novel, which effectively ramps up the tension and ties the disparate pieces together into a satisfying whole. VERDICT Mystery aficionados who appreciate strong but flawed female protagonists will want to follow this series. [See Prepub Alert, 1/23/17.]--ACT

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 1, 2017
New Orleans rookie cop Maureen Coughlin faces a new challenge: Mardi Gras. An NOPD patrol cop's first Mardi Gras is a rite of passage like no other, and Coughlin's is no exception. First a man, clad only in pink tights and very high on something, throws himself on the hood of a car and promptly turns catatonic. Then shots are fired somewhere in the crowd. The NOPD is all about live and let live during Mardi Gras, until bullets and blood make their appearance. Coughlin has to deal with both, knowing that the first bullet is often not the last. What transpires is a testament to an amazing kind of street-smart grace under pressure. As Coughlin and a couple of her equally savvy colleagues attempt to sort out the contradictory facts surrounding the shooting, while dealing with nonfunctioning cops who get in their way, Loehfelm conducts a master class in how a writer builds character from the smallest of details. Coughlin remains the star hereshe's still one of the most compelling figures in crime fictionbut this time, the focus is on cops working together; it's a procedural in the best sense of the word, and it evokes Ed McBain at the top of his gagme. At a time when real-life urban police forces have been the object of intense and well-deserved criticism, Loehfelm reminds us that sometimes a handful of diverse cops, working together in the midst of both muddle and malfeasance, can staunch the flow of blood, at least for a while.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)