A Connecticut Yankee in Criminal Court

by Peter J. Heck Narrated by Will Damron

Overview

A beautiful city with ugly traditions of corruption and racism. A black man set to hang for a murder he didn't commit. A world-famous author-and detective-who isn't about to let it happen. This is the sequel to Heck's acclaimed debut, Death on the Mississippi.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Heck takes a colorful city (New Orleans) and a colorful character (Mark Twain), adds a murder, a duel, some voodoo and period detail and conjures up an entertaining sequel to his debut, Death on the Mississippi. As told by Wentworth Cabot, Twain's secretary and the Connecticut Yankee of the title who plays Watson to Twain's Holmes, this second Twain adventure finds the irascible writer in New Orleans on a lecture tour that's an attempt to recover financial health. Author George Washington Cable, one of several historical characters making an appearance, enlists Twain's detective skills to prove innocent a black cook imprisoned for the fatal poisoning of his employer. To Twain, this task means proving someone else guilty, since there is a large presumption of guilt operating against the cook, Leonard Galloway. The dead man's wealthy friends and relatives comprise a likely list of suspects. With the aid of Cabot and Cable, jazz trumpet legend Buddy Bolden (before he won fame) and the voodoo woman, Eulalie Echo, Twain puzzles out the solution. But not before giving the reader an enjoyable tour of 1890s New Orleans restaurants, bars, Jackson Square and Garden District homes, along with a look at the infamous Parish Prison. Twain can take a bow for his performance here, with readers assured that Heck will give him a chance for an encore. (Dec.)

Kirkus Reviews

His 1894 lecture tour takes Sam Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain, down the Mississippi to New Orleans, to his friend and fellow- author George Washington Cable, and to a mystery Cable's got a stake in—the arrest of Leonard Galloway, an African-American cook Cable's known forever, for the murder of mayoral aspirant John David Robinson. The police, of course, don't think it's much of a mystery; now that they've locked up Galloway, they've stopped looking for anybody else. But the cook couldn't have poisoned Robinson on such flimsy provocation as the police contend, Cable insists; it's up to Clemens, fresh from his riverboat detective debut (Death on the Mississippi, 1995), to clear him by fingering the real killer. And Clemens plunges into his role with surprising relish, identifying half a dozen likely suspects in Robinson's family circle, worming his way inside the widow's house of mourning, following up leads that take him to voodoo priestess Eulalie Echo and shady saloonkeeper Tom Anderson, and lecturing his amanuensis Wentworth Cabot on evidence and tactics with all the aplomb of Perry Mason. But the case takes an abrupt detour when Cabot's boundless naiveté lands him in a duel to the death that ends with his arrest for murder, and Clemens has to use all his persuasive wiles in a courtroom scene that still leaves the killer free till the lively voodoo- tinctured climax.

Packed with casual racists, unregenerate Civil War veterans, superstitious rationalists, and poseurs of every stripe—exactly the sort of colorful cast that brings its satiric hero's famous talent for unmasking pretension into brilliant relief.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169784954
Publisher:	Brilliance Audio
Publication date:	09/04/2018
Series:	The Mark Twain Mysteries , #2
Edition description:	Unabridged

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