LET THE DEVIL OUT

The IRB's Celebrating 10 Years of Intelligent Reviews October 2007-October 2017 Fiction

An easy chair and a martini

LET THE DEVIL OUT

By Bill Loehfelm

302 pp. Picador

Reviewed by Alan Goodman 

The longstanding attraction of detective mysteries speaks to the easy read. If you're looking for a book to accompany you to your favorite easy chair, a nicely turned martini, and that rare evening that promises quietude, nothing beats cozying up to Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe, Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot or Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch.

Always on the prowl for a new detective, a new crime, and new characters of dubious moral persuasion, this reviewer jumped at the chance to accompany Bill Loehfelm's Maureen Coughlin through the dark alleys of New Orleans.

Rookie police officer Maureen Coughlin and I are actually old buddies. That shadow you saw transfixed to her every motive and move in Loehfelm’s previous book, Doing The Devil's Work, was none other than me, semi detective Al. I daresay, that last book damned near had me biting my nails down to the stubs. I like to think that without my urgings officer Coughlin might not have survived this last story. 

One sip past an olive and twenty-four pages of Let The Devil Out had me wondering whether I should find Maureen Coughlin a very good shrink, and Bill Loehfelm a rock and roll gig so he could rethink the opening. (He plays drums in a rock and roll band, according to the book credits.) 

Bill, Bill, Bill. The opening of this one is a very tough read. Even with the benefit of knowing characters from the previous Coughlin book, one could hardly make out who did what to whom, when, how, why, and what for. The protagonist is so conflicted with reminiscing about past events and assassins in this opening section that fans such as I are left confused as to whether this drama will survive the opening chapters. 

She closed her eyes and envisioned herself not as the thin, short, pale-faced redhead she was, but maybe as a stout, dark-haired, and tattooed medicine woman, crouched on her haunches as she told her story, surrounded by openmouthed, wide-eyed squaws circling the longhouse fire. She tried to hear herself, tried to listen to herself tell them the story of the Silver-Haired Man, The November Man, the one who haunted her in these late weeks of autumn. The one she saw reflected in store windows along Magazine Street and turning corners ahead of her along St. Charles Avenue. The one who lived in the blind spot over her shoulder, who hovered in her peripheral vision. The man she had seen in the soulless eyes of a sociopathic rich boy outside a party at his father's Audubon Park mansion, who she saw everywhere around her in the bars and clubs of New Orleans at night, in the glittering ravenous eyes of black and blonde young men.

But ... (but) ... if the reader perseveres, things get better (Hang in there until chapter four). There is a mix of personal angst on the part of our heroine (perhaps too much for my comfort zone), social upheaval in society at large, and professional infighting within the police department. Without giving too much away, the story devolves from the murder of a shadowy character who is not particularly well defined. But his death leads to the activities of “Citizen's Watch,” a super-patriotic (and I would say, idiotic) organization of would-be revolutionaries. 

The story develops perhaps more slowly than did the author’s last book. And this is unfortunate because his writing can be very good at its best – and for this reader the heavily flavored angst of Maureen Coughlin tends to overwhelm the forward movement of the tale. However, when the action rolls around, it is definitely worth the ride.

Overall – with the exception of my complaints – this is a nicely wrought who-dunnit, and I would recommend it to those of you who might be considering an easy chair, a martini and a free evening.