His art is forever being tested by his relationships, his city, and the death that falls over the city like a dark cloak. Eventually, mercury drives him mad, but his work and his life remain as vibrant as it did in the vibrancy of New Orleans. Russell, an Illinois native, and an instructor at the University of Florida, writes sharply, details crisp, with as much fun with plotting as New Orleans is ribald. The city, complete with Russell's rich and believeable cast, is in itself a character. Like New York City was to Caleb Carr's The Alienist , Russell's New Orleans pours off the page, running down the delta of our minds.
Images are rich and thick.
The smells are pungent. Yellow Jack holds you while transporting you at the same time. In middle-August, a month after I'd come to the city, the cannons were still firing, the barrels of tar still burning, and those brave enough to walk the streets still wore masks, not props from an independence celebration but futile attempts at fighting the fever that'd rattled my chest and come forth as coughs of inky syrup. My hands shook and I dropped the flowers. They were daisies, and I wanted them, but my pride would not let me stoop to gather them, so I left the flowers on the floor.