TWO BULLETS IN A BAYOU

Assassin Erica Banks returns to New Orleans to execute a series of high-profile hits contracted by a Cuban drug ring. Banks is a highly experienced professional, and at first, the murders leave law enforcement baffled. Lawyer Harry Barnes, a fixer who doesn’t always stick to the right side of the law, gets involved when an ex-girlfriend asks him to help clear the name of her uncle, who was one of the victims: Chick Charbonnet, the umpire who “handed the World Series to the wildly underdog New York Mets” over the Red Sox. Accusations of game-fixing have been stirred up again by his gruesome murder. Barnes enlists his colleague, astute hacker Rhonda Dickerman, to help him look into Chick’s past, and they begin to uncover a much larger conspiracy involving high-rolling gamblers, the international drug trade, and an assassin. While this is technically an Erica Banks novel, with her perspective included, the protagonist of this series installment is very much Barnes. With connections to every major player in town, he robustly fulfills the well-connected, straight-shooting noir stereotype. Barnes’ previous activities are often described in a bit too much detail—the first handful of his reminiscences adequately establish his bona fides, but later inclusions become repetitive as he exhaustively details every meal and drink he consumes. While many of the restaurants visited are New Orleans institutions and furnish local color, the effect loses impact after so many interchangeable iterations. Though Barnes is the primary narrator, chapters from the perspectives of Banks, Dickerman, and several other supporting players provide necessary context and add compelling variety to the narrative. While readers may put together a few heavy-handed clues before Barnes does, the mix of action and investigation will appeal to fans of James Patterson and David Baldacci.