Bourbon Street — Leonce Gaiter

In 1958, gambler Deke Watley decides to leave the comfort and golden dust of Texas for the toxic chiaroscuro of Mardi Gras New Orleans: he smells the chance of a lifetime. It gets even better when this opportunity to win big collides with Hannah, a woman from his past -- a woman he wronged -- a wrong he's regretted ever since. Playing him in more ways than one is Alex Moreau, the half-black son of a notorious white racketeer. It's Alex's game, and he weaves the worst of his troubled past to create an orgy of vengeance, only to find that the other players have scores to settle, too. Amid the noise and the frenzy of the drunken crowds, streamers flying like electric currents, bejeweled costumes glittering, Deke stumbles through this foreign, lurid town, seeking a return to the innocence he turned his back on long ago. However, time is running out and old debts must be paid before Deke -- or any other hustler -- leaves Bourbon Street alive. This debut novel from Leonce Gaiter combines Walter Mosley's dark brushstrokes of postwar America with the best of the grifters and petty hustlers that populate Chester Himes, bringing a fresh voice to the African-American crime novel.