Julie Smith: Jazz Funeral (USA 1994)

From the Publisher:
"A GENUINELY MOVING MYSTERY... It's always a pleasure to spend time with Skip, a no-nonsense, level-headed heroine in a wild and reckless city." -- The Baltimore Sun

Homicide detective Skip Langdon finds herself smack in the middle of a sweltering New Orleans summer with a most unenviable case: the stabbing death of the universally beloved producer of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

But it's not only the dead that Skip has to worry about. The victim's sixteen-year-old sister has disappeared, and Skip suspects that if the young woman isn't herself the murderer, she's in mortal danger from the person who is. With her long-distance love, Steve Steinman, and her landlord, Jimmy Dee, to assist her, Skip trails an elusive killer through the delirium of a city caught up in the world's most famous music bash....

"This is Smith's most richly detailed novel, with fascinating characters and views of the New Orleans music scene and the French Quarter world of young runaways." -- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"Langdon is as captivating a character as the city in which she lives and works. This is a series that gets stronger with each book." -- The Denver Post

Julie Smith: Jazz Funeral. A Skip Langdon Novel. Ivy Books, ISBN: 0804112525 (June, 1994), 360 p., $5.99.

Julie Smith: Jazz Funeral (USA 1993)

From the Publisher:
What's all this jazz about Julie Smith's New Orleans and her heroine Skip Langdon? Critics solve the mystery....
"In choosing a tour guide to crime and corruption in New Orleans, you want to know where the authors will send you for a good time. Julie Smith will stroll you through the Garden District, and treat you to a muffuletta at Napoleon House... Not a nuance of the city's byzantine social politics escapes [her]." -- The New York Times Book Review

"Marvelous... If Tennessee Williams wore a trenchcoat, he'd feel right at home here" -- Chicago Tribune
"Smith catches New Orleans from blues in the night to beignets at dawn." -- Los Angeles Times Book Review
"Smith is a gifted writer and she tells her story on many levels, through many dimensions." -- The Washington Post Book World

"Skip knows her city, from the down-and-out dives to the conspicuous consumption mansions, and has access to all the gossip, history and outright fantasies of New Orleans power structure." -- Dallas Morning News

"Langdon is a splendid female heroine." -- People

In Jazz Funeral, Julie Smith once again takes us behind the scenes in New Orleans, with a multi-faceted story of murder, music, and family sorrow. This time, homicide detective Skip Langdon finds herself trying to solve the stabbing death of the universally beloved producer of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

To confuse the case further, the victim's sixteen-year-old sister has disappeared, and Skip suspects that if the young woman isn't herself the murderer, she's in mortal danger from the person who is. With her long-distance love, Steve Steinman, and her landlord, Jimmy Dee, to assist her, Skip trails an elusive killer through the steamy city that Julie Smith has claimed as her own fictional territory.

Julie Smith: Jazz Funeral. A Skip Langdon Novel. Fawcett Columbine, ISBN: 0449907422 (May, 1993), 365 p., $18.00.