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Luke Jacobs would rather be carving wood, a craft he learned and shared with his now deceased father, an uncorrupted 30-year veteran of the New Orleans police force. But Luke's mother encouraged higher aspirations for her bright son, who studied law and rose to the rank of New Orleans Assistant District Attorney.

Luke, however, becomes disillusioned with his position-one that often sends young first-time offenders to prison. He finally throws in the towel when he finds himself helpless to get a law school friend out of a very suspicious murder rap. Choosing to employ his intuitive nature, Luke leaves the law profession to become a private investigator. A hand-carved wooden shingle over a Moss Street office door simply reads-Luke Jacobs.

It isn't long before trouble comes knocking in the form of an attractive Tulane law student who makes herself comfortable amidst the unpacked boxes and clutter of Luke's office. She downs shots of scotch without blinking or revealing her true intentions. Her visit seems to be no more than a minor annoyance until she turns up at Luke's apartment in the middle of the night escorted by two of New Orlean's finest. The woman, whose name Luke never really caught, claims she's been with him that night and that the murder at the Funky Butt, a jazz club located at the edge of the French Quarter, has nothing to do with her.

In his first novel of detective fiction, author Ken Mask captures the flavor of New Orleans without over-seasoning or cliché. He describes a certain "business style" unique to the city-the template for which was laid down in the days of its colonial beginnings-when slave ships docked beside pirates, and merchant ships loaded their chambers with cotton while depositing immigrants from Europe and the Caribbean. It is a style born of both the mingling of the tenacious maintenance of the original cultures-where corruption became the status quo and interdependence a matter of survival. Mask takes a non-linear approach to his narrative, shifting in time and point of view infusing the text with jazz riffs and literary references. He skillfully elevates the genre without sacrificing a single line of page-turning tension.