Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

By: Sara Gran

Narrated by: Carol Monda

Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

Claire DeWitt is not your average private investigator. She has brilliant skills of deduction and is an ace at discovering evidence. But Claire also uses her dreams, omens, and mind-expanding herbs to help her solve mysteries, and relies on Détection—the only book published by the great and mysterious French detective Jacques Silette before his death.

The tattooed, pot-smoking Claire has just arrived in post-Katrina New Orleans, the city she’s avoided since her mentor, Silette’s student Constance Darling, was murdered there. Claire is investigating the disappearance of Vic Willing, a prosecutor known for winning convictions in a homicide-plagued city. Has an angry criminal enacted revenge on Vic? Or did he use the storm as means to disappear? Claire follows the clues, finding old friends and making new enemies—foremost among them Andray Fairview, a young gang member who just might hold the key to the mystery.

©2011 Original material by Sara Gran. (P)2011 HighBridge Company

Fast paced and interesting

I got this book through some sort of promotion or other. Always a good way to meet a new writer, though it's hit and miss. This book was good enough that I will keep choosing her books and I hope they are as good as this one.

The story moved along well and the character development was excellent. It isn't a supernatural story, the IChing and her dreams are just a portion of what she uses to solve the mystery and are related sort of in passing. It's a good choice for a listen.

A little dull

What did you like best about Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead? What did you like least?

As a Louisiana native, I'm always looking for a story set in New Orleans. I found the narration a little corny. And I didn't find myself terribly attached to any of the characters. Disappointing.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Possibly. Mainly for the New Orleans setting.

an O.K. read

Ms. Gran needs work on her character development. I liked her heroine and the story, but there is no depth to her writing

A perfect book, an even more perfect audio book.

One of my top ten audiobooks. I listen to it every couple of years. this author and narrator were made for each other.

Read "Bohemian Highway" First

If you're interested in Claire DeWitt, you should start with "Bohemian Highway," which is drowning in sorrow and wants to pull you under. "City of the Dead," on the other hand, is a more topical but also typical detective story with only hints of the art, mystery and emotional devastation of "Bohemian Highway." Neither Sara Gran nor Carol Monda seem to have fully developed the character of Claire DeWitt here, but it's still a fun listen.

"Bohemian Highway" starts slowly with Claire DeWitt hired to solve the mystery of a missing District Attorney. As in Walter Mosley or Philip Kerr's detective novels, the mystery is a MacGuffin that provides a tour of a specific time and place--post-Katrina New Orleans--and the social injustices to be found therein. "City of the Dead" takes a little too long to get going, and if I had listened to it first, I don't know that I would have listened to "Bohemian Highway," which would have been a damn shame.

Claire DeWitt is not a typical detective. As she tells her client, her plan is to "wait and see what happens." She gets to know the local drug dealers and homeless population while searching for answers in her subconscious by paying attention to her dreams, performing divination via the I Ching, and using drugs. A LOT of drugs. But DeWitt isn't a supernatural detective like Harry Dresden, nor is she the kind of detective that's always right, like Harry Bosch. Instead, DeWitt is a kind of meta-detective, and her story is an exploration of what a detective story is and why we find them so interesting. These themes are explored to greater effect in "Bohemian Highway," and both books sometimes become trite or silly, reading more like self-help than detective drama. At its best, however, "Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead" provides the same exciting chill that DeWitt experiences when she finds a clue: the recognition of Truth.

Nothing to get excited about

As much as the book tried to depict a new and unique kind of PI, the main character offered nothing out of the ordinary to the genera. She kept telling us how different she was, but never showed us why.I didn't really dislike this book, but just found it to be a run-of-the-mill PI novel. I think I got it on sale. Glad I didn't use a credit or pay full price.

Not what I expected

Darker than I thought it would be but I really enjoyed it. Sara Gran has a gift for depicting scenes and spot-on dialogue. I will be looking for more in this series!

Amazing mystery with great protagonist

I am rarely impressed by mystery novels after a life of reading it: So many other works out there have trite messages, dull prose; racism and sexism and more abound.

This book is different. Its main character is a well-rounded person, immensely likeable for her unlikeabilty; the story takes twists and turns; the language resounds.

Highest recommendation from me.

Great Narration

I loved this book. Sara Gran created such an interesting character in Claire DeWitt -- smart, flawed, blessed, and cursed. I think I would have enjoyed the book no matter who narrated it, but Carol Monda -- my gosh, she really brought Claire to life with her sultry, cynical, fluid reading.

Potsmoking is offputting, but good story.

The story was interesting and worth listening to, but so much time spent getting loaded was a turn off.
I know I enjoyed this book, but I've read proably 6 or 7 books since this one and can't really remember much else about it other than she got loaded a lot and had to rely on other people's ministrations which doesn't coincide in my mind with a "kick butt" female private investigator.