Why did I love this book?
This unique story intelligently and creatively brings the reader a true story with both fictional and actual characters from 1920s New Orleans, including one of jazz's greatest icons, Louis Armstrong. I learned a lot about early twentieth-century New Orleans and an account of a real-life serial killer that plagued the citizenry for a nightmarish one-and-a-half-year period of time. Admittedly, there are graphic descriptions of the serial killer’s evil deeds that you may prefer to skip over, but that will neither detract from the flow of the storyline nor create any confusion.
As a fan of jazz music, and a fan of engaging crime stories, fact or fiction, The Axeman’s Jazz took me on a journey back in time to 1920’s New Orleans, complete with colorful physical descriptions of both the city, the people, and the music. This seemingly could have been a fun whodunit fictional novel, so the fact that it’s actually a story based on fact, and a wildly unique one at that, certainly puts this book as a highly recommended crime story for this list.
3 authors picked The Axeman as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
"Ray Celestin skillfully depicts the desperate revels of that idiosyncratic city and its bizarre legends in his first novel, THE AXEMAN." - The New York Times Sunday Book Review (Marilyn Stasio, Crime Columnist)
The Axeman stalks the streets of New Orleans...
In a town filled with gangsters, voodoo, and jazz trumpets sounding from the dance halls, a sense of intoxicating mystery often beckons from the back alleys. But when a serial killer roams the sultry nights, even the corrupt cops can't see the clues. That is, until a letter from the Axeman himself is published in the newspaper, proclaiming that…