Ill Will by J.M. Redmann

Publisher:          Bold Strokes Books

Ill Will is the seventh installment in the Micky Knight mystery series.  It’s set in a New Orleans that is still struggling to recover from the effects of Hurricane Katrina and this time Micky is dealing with the shysters and scam artists who have moved into the city.  One case has her representing the victims of builders who have taken their money and then disappeared.  Another case has her trying to track down the source of herbal supplements that are being sold to desperately sick people as an alternative to standard medications.  With so few doctors in the city, people will try anything to cure their illnesses.

Micky and her partner Cordelia are struggling as much as the city.  Their relationship has suffered some severe strains and they are gingerly trying to regain the trust and support they once shared.  They will rediscover their feelings when a life threatening illness appears in their lives.  Each woman will be called on to demonstrate strength neither knew that she had.  In the process they will have to reassess what is truly important.

Like the previous two books in the series, Ill Will has a more serious tone than the earlier books.  This can only be expected in stories that are so strongly rooted in New Orleans.  The question is, is Redmann trying to describe what has happened to the city or exorcise demons from the experience of the aftermath of the hurricane?  Probably it’s some of both.  New Orleans had lived by the slogan “Laissez les bons temps rouler” (Let the good times roll) and the city is still trying in these books to return to those good times.  Redmann captures how difficult that is as she has Micky describe the destruction and barrenness that grip the area.  The reader can feel the horror of the event whenever Micky describes the impact that being stranded in a hospital had on Cordelia.  It doesn’t take much to evoke the famous images of bodies lying in the streets and houses.  This is a city occupied by ghosts, living and dead.  The posttraumatic stress of the citizens is almost another character. 

Mickey offers a bit of wisdom about the relationship between Cordelia and her:  More important, we agreed that we had to find more ways to…capture the small moments and be together…. But how you spend time can be more important than saving time.  It’s not much of a stretch however to see how this same philosophy, with a twist, applies to the city and the people who survive there.  New Orleans has moved on.  It’s a different city with a new demographic that remembers the past, but is facing the future.  How they live now is more important than how they lived.  Perhaps Redmann will use her next book to show Micky and her friends moving forward with the city instead of being so rooted in their memories.

The major weakness in the story is one that reappears in every Micky Knight book, so it’s really a habit of Redmann’s.  Micky always starts off with two cases that have nothing to do with each other and by the end of the book, they end up being the same case.  In a city with a reduced population this might be more possible than in the past, but New Orleans is still a major city.  To believe that unrelated events always come together as parts of the same whole is more than improbable.

Redmann’s mysteries are never as much about who did it as they are about how Micky is going to prove it.  Certain aspects of the puzzle become evident very quickly.  The intrigue comes as Micky tries to fit the pieces together and bring the culprits to justice without getting herself or anyone else killed.  For that experience alone, it’s always interesting to read a Micky Knight mystery.

Death of a Dying Man by J.M. Redmann

Publisher:              Bold Strokes Books

Fans of the Micky Knight series had to wait a long time for this installment.  The fact that Redmann lives in New Orleans played a big a part in that and the fact that Hurricane Katrina becomes a character in this book.

Damon LaChance is a well-known figure in the New Orleans gay community, famous for his decadence and the bars he owns in the French Quarter.  Seven years before he slept with a woman for the first and last time, so, when she told him she was pregnant, he rejected her.  It couldn't be his child, could it?  Now Damon is dying and he's having doubts.  He wants Micky to find the child and determine if she is his daughter.  He wants someone to leave his property to, but more importantly, he wants to feel a connection to the future he won't have.  When someone murders Damon, Micky becomes more determined to find the child that someone is trying to disinherit.   

Micky's task and her life are complicated by Dr. Lauren Calder and her lover Shannon Wild.  Dr. Calder is working on a project with Micky's lover Dr. Cordelia James and taking up way too much of Cordelia's time.  Shannon is a journalist who decides that working with Micky to solve the LaChance case would be a great way to get experience and to hit on Micky.  Micky's professional work is distracted by Shannon's presence and her personal life begins to deteriorate as she suspects something may be going on between Lauren and Cordelia.  As Hurricane Kartina roars into the Gulf Coast Micky's emotions are torn in multiple directions and she is forced to face the possibility that not only will she lose the city she loves, but the relationship her whole life is based upon.

Redmann is a Lambda Literary Award winner and shows her experience in this book.  The various subplots weave together like threads to form the pattern of the whole cloth.  Just enough about the plot is revealed to keep the reader going, but not enough to keep surprises from popping up.  Micky's emotions are tightly wrapped and on the verge of flying apart as she vacillates between confidence and doubt.  The dramatic tension created by the search for the child, and by extension the murderer, is counter balanced by the tension between Micky and Cordelia. 

Looming over everything is the growing presence of the storm as it approaches.  Redmann captures the inattention of the residents as Katrina is just a story on the news and then the growing awareness of the danger they face as landfall becomes imminent.  The terror of the flight from the city, the sense of powerlessness to help those left behind and the devastation caused to New Orleans pours from the pages.  Characters who haven't acted nobly earlier in the book emerge as heroes and others show their true natures.

The spell that Jean Redmann weaves draws the reader into and through the book.  There is a totally unexpected twist in the relationship between Micky and Cordelia that begs for the rapid appearance of the next book in the series.  Death of a Dying Man has a lot of selling points – mystery, romance, emotions and current events.  Readers should be able to enjoy it on many levels.

Water Mark by J.M. Redmann

Publisher:             Bold Strokes Books

J.M. Redmann returns once again to post-Katrina New Orleans for her sixth Mickey Knight mystery.  For fans of the series the real interest may be whether or not Mickey and Cordelia get back together after what happened in the previous book.  They'll have to read this one to find out.

Just like the city, Mickey's life is a shambles and she is trying to cope with an atmosphere radically changed from what she is used to.  She stumbles into a mystery when she's hired to go to someone's house to retrieve mementoes and has to help a church group that has come as volunteers to pull houses down and instead discovers a body.  Mickey tries to solve a murder while dealing with misguided teenagers, religious conservatives and a wealthy family that is being blackmailed.  What she really wants to figure out is how to talk to Cordelia and try to see if they can mend their relationship.

Redmann makes it clear in this book that there is still a lot to be said about what Katrina did to New Orleans and the people there.  The mystery in this book isn't that mysterious, but serves rather as a vehicle to carry the rest of the story.  The real focus is on the trauma that still reverberates from that storm.  Redmann deals with the city and its people with great sympathy and the affection she feels for both pours from the pages.  For sections that are written so well, the "story" actually gets in the way and comes off as rather contrived.

Still, Jean Redmann is an extremely accomplished writer and knows how to use words with an elegance that few achieve.  She spins a mood better than most authors are capable of and it gives her books a very rich feeling.  That experience makes the book worth reading even if the mystery is somewhat weak.