Nearer Home: A Novel (Nola Cespedes Mystery)
The second New Orleans–set mystery starring Times-Picayune reporter Nola Céspedes returns to the post-Katrina city (this one spans 10 days in 2009, during Jazz Fest) and, again, makes ingenious use of beleaguered New Orleans as backdrop. Nola, a Latina who grew up in the projects in the Ninth Ward, has been promoted from feature writing to the crime beat. Castro does a little corpus ex machina to get the plot moving and has Nola stumble over a fresh crime scene on her morning run. Nola recognizes the victim as Dr. Judith Taffner, one of her former journalism professors at Tulane, whom Nola disliked intensely. Quicker than you can say “journalistic ethics,” Nola breaks into the victim’s office and pockets Taffner’s flash drive. This novel is incredibly unconvincing concerning Nola’s investigation, and her love affair is equally unconvincing. However, the New Orleans setting and the hard-scrabble character of Nola help to carry an unlikely story. --Connie Fletcher