Let the Devil Out (Maureen Coughlin Series #4)

by Bill Loehfelm

Overview

Maureen Coughlin is complicated—tough and naive, street-smart and vulnerable. And, way too often, reckless. When we meet her, she's in rough shape. A rookie beat cop in the New Orleans Police Department, she's already been suspended once, and things are about to get worse. The FBI has arrived in town on the trail of a ruthless, white supremacist militia group called the Watchmen Brigade, and no one in the NOPD wants to work with them. Guess which suspended rookie is told she doesn't have a choice?

Things go badly wrong. And when brilliant but impulsive Maureen lights a match, New Orleans might just explode.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250132208
Publisher:	Picador
Publication date:	07/03/2017
Series:	Maureen Coughlin Series , #4
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

BILL LOEHFELM is the author of Let the Devil Out, Doing the Devil's Work, The Devil in Her Way, The Devil She Knows, Bloodroot, and Fresh Kills. He lives in New Orleans with his wife, the writer AC Lambeth, and plays drums in a rock-'n'-roll band.

Editorial Reviews

"Dark, evocative, and with a plot as fascinating and surprising as New Orleans itself." —Alison Gaylin, USA Today bestselling author of What Remains of Me

"That's the thing about New Orleans: No one can bear to leave for higher, safer ground, not the evil men who prey on the city’s innocents or the decent folks who try to save them, and certainly not Maureen. 'She and New Orleans, they were made for each other.' . . . [An] entertaining if highly unorthodox police procedural." —The New York Times Book Review

"Not only has Loehfelm created the most compelling, complex patrol cop in the genre—part take-no-prisoners badass, part too-sensitive-for-the street rookie—he has also reenergized New Orleans as a setting for the best in crime fiction, going well beyond the clichés (no Cafe du Monde here) and nailing that rich Treme vibe—edgy, dangerous, but pulsing with life. Maureen Coughlin is as good as it gets." —Bill Ott, Booklist (starred review)

"[Loehfelm's] books are more than a series of police procedurals (or nonprocedural, depending on how you look at them). They provide a searching look at [New Orleans] in a particularly violent and troubled time." —The New Orleans Advocate

"Bill Loehfelm is a pro. . . . This is how suspense is done." —Criminal Element

"What's most admirable about the series and elevates it over the average procedural is the nuanced evolution of a former Staten Island bartender into a New Orleans street cop." —Kirkus Reviews

"Atmospheric." —Publishers Weekly

"Readers familiar with Loehfelm's work will not be surprised to discover: it’s really good." —Library Journal

"Let the Devil Out is a ferociously smart, tough, and honest crime novel, with a main character, Maureen Coughlin, who will grab you and never let go." —Lou Berney, Edgar Award–nominated author of The Long and Faraway Gone

From the Publisher

…[an] entertaining if highly unorthodox police procedural.

The New York Times Book Review - Marilyn Stasio

05/09/2016
Loehfelm’s atmospheric but somewhat addled fourth outing for hard-charging New Orleans rookie cop Maureen Coughlin (after 2015’s Doing the Devil’s Work) finds the former cocktail waitress chafing during the final days of a suspension, self-medicating with whiskey to dull memories of the violent events that prompted her to leave her native New York a year earlier. She’s also disregarding the orders of her concerned supervisor, legendary Sgt. Preacher Boyd, to temporarily desist from digging into who recently shot up her home, especially any inquiries that might involve wealthy mover and shaker Solomon Heath. And Coughlin can’t resist trying to locate the prime suspect in the murders of two gun-running members of an extremist militia called the Watchmen Brigade. The action moves briskly through colorful Crescent City locales, but the plot, which involves shooting NOPD cops in ambushes, ends up making less sense than it should. Author tour. Agent: Barney Karpfinger, Karpfinger Agency. (July)

Publishers Weekly

02/15/2016
In this fourth Maureen Coughlin novel, following Doing the Devil's Work (an IndieNext selection) and The Devil in Her Way (Strand magazine's top book of 2013), rookie New Orleans cop Maureen bangs headfirst into her adopted city's famed corruption. Breakout time for this author.

Library Journal

2016-05-04
In the fourth Maureen Coughlin book by New Orleans transplant Loehfelm, Coughlin is both licking her wounds from the events of Doing the Devil's Work (2015) and learning to "believe"—a word which represents hope for a city that's disaster prone.A quick catch-up: a militia group, the Sovereign Citizens, has come to New Orleans to raise a little hell. In Devil's Work, Coughlin shut them down and shed light on the doings of some dirty cops in the process. The militia shot up her apartment so thoroughly that there are still bullet holes in the headboard of her bed. As the new book begins, the department is investigating Coughlin. She's on suspension, and she's not taking her punishment lightly, but as an obsessive fueled by pure rage, she begins following men she thinks are potential rapists out of bars and beating them up before they can do any harm to the women who'd found them threatening. She's also still obsessed with the characters from the Sovereign Citizens—Madison Leary, a street person connected to the militia; the Heath family, who are certainly funding their activities; and Clayton Gage, their major strategist. Once Coughlin is reinstated, all hell really does break loose, in a frighteningly vivid and realistic domestic terror attack directed at the NOPD. What's most admirable about the series and elevates it over the average procedural is the nuanced evolution of a former Staten Island bartender into a New Orleans street cop.

Kirkus Reviews