Redemption — Frederick Turner

Francis Muldoon is a special policeman in the notorious Storyville District of New Orleans in 1913. His job is to see that the District's volatile mixture of sex, alcohol, and gambling doesn't boil over but instead rolls along at a continuous simmer. Once a member of the city's regular police force, he now works for the District's vice lord, Tom Anderson, patrolling his patron's honky-tonks and saloons and whorehouses -- both the high-priced bordellos and the coffinlike cribs where the girls work with only a cot and a washbasin.  When Adele, a beautiful singer at the Tuxedo dance hall, draws Francis into a contentious rivalry for her affection, a fatal shootout is the inevitable conclusion, sending the District into a scalding eruption and revealing the central characters for what they are.

Filled with the rich atmosphere of America's most colorful city, Redemption is the powerfully told tale of a man's efforts to restore the integrity of his soul.