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Papa La-Bas
The scene in Papa La-Bas is New Orleans in 1858. There, strong men, lovely women, dark magic and violence swirl around Senator Judah P. Benjamin, who can solve any problem by logical analysis, and Richard Macrae, Her Majesty's Consul, when they witness a devilish murder.
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
About the author
John Dickson Carr
441 books514 followersAKA Carter Dickson, Carr Dickson and Roger Fairbairn.
John Dickson Carr was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in 1906. It Walks by Night, his first published detective novel, featuring the Frenchman Henri Bencolin, was published in 1930. Apart from Dr Fell, whose first appearance was in Hag's Nook in 1933, Carr's other series detectives (published under the nom de plume of Carter Dickson) were the barrister Sir Henry Merrivale, who debuted in The Plague Court Murders (1934).
John Dickson Carr was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in 1906. It Walks by Night, his first published detective novel, featuring the Frenchman Henri Bencolin, was published in 1930. Apart from Dr Fell, whose first appearance was in Hag's Nook in 1933, Carr's other series detectives (published under the nom de plume of Carter Dickson) were the barrister Sir Henry Merrivale, who debuted in The Plague Court Murders (1934).
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
February 25, 2017
In the 19th century, as the American Civil War (War of Northern Aggression, War Between the States, War to Preserve the Union) seems to be inevitable, New Orleans is still a major trade center and a vital port. Within polite society, there are uncomfortable feelings about the portending war. There are quite ambiguous feelings in the mind of the British Consul posted in New Orleans, one Richard Macrae, the British consul who is the protagonist of Papa Là Bas. However, if you should ever read the back cover of the paperback edition of this story from Carroll & Graf Publishers (ca. 1989), don’t believe the synopsis. Macrae doesn’t stumble over a body; it falls toward him. Indeed, the whole intricate pattern of mysteries in this novel falls into Macrae’s lap much as the exciting carriage chase in the early section of the story and the romance that shakes up Macrae’s single life.
Set in 1834, Papa Là Bas is a tale of revenge. It deals with violence and Voodoo, quadroons and coquettes. This is only the second mystery that I’ve read by the prolific John Dickson Carr. As such, it follows the pattern of having the protagonist “involved” in trying to solve the mystery but using a third character to perform the more objective investigation and problem-solving. In Papa Là Bas, the objective investigator is Senator Benjamin—an old family friend of the first family which has a problem and of the intended victims of the revenge plot. Voodoo plays an intriguing role in the mystery, but not exactly in the way one might think it would.
Carr certainly doesn’t assemble “simple” mysteries. Rather than merely having a “red herring,” he introduces schools of them. Yet, he seems to do a good job of pulling them back in the net when the mystery or mysteries is/are solved. I was relatively certain of the murderer from early on, but there was one fluffy bit of misdirection that had me pin the tail on the wrong donkey. When the villain (who really sees himself more as the family “avenger” rather than a villain) is finally cornered, I was certain that the character I had switched my suspicion toward was going to be correct. But no! It was my original suspect and, in the light of the background subject matter of the story, I felt somewhat “cursed” to have fallen for the author’s sleight-of-hand.
It is always exciting to discover an author who pleases your taste and has a major body of work to keep you entertained for years. I won’t have to wait for Carr’s next novel. They are plenty and my friend Pierce Waters was quite correct to have pointed me toward Carr as the finest craftsman of the “locked room mystery.” The solution to Papa Là Bas makes absolute perfect sense when you find out how it was…er…executed.
Set in 1834, Papa Là Bas is a tale of revenge. It deals with violence and Voodoo, quadroons and coquettes. This is only the second mystery that I’ve read by the prolific John Dickson Carr. As such, it follows the pattern of having the protagonist “involved” in trying to solve the mystery but using a third character to perform the more objective investigation and problem-solving. In Papa Là Bas, the objective investigator is Senator Benjamin—an old family friend of the first family which has a problem and of the intended victims of the revenge plot. Voodoo plays an intriguing role in the mystery, but not exactly in the way one might think it would.
Carr certainly doesn’t assemble “simple” mysteries. Rather than merely having a “red herring,” he introduces schools of them. Yet, he seems to do a good job of pulling them back in the net when the mystery or mysteries is/are solved. I was relatively certain of the murderer from early on, but there was one fluffy bit of misdirection that had me pin the tail on the wrong donkey. When the villain (who really sees himself more as the family “avenger” rather than a villain) is finally cornered, I was certain that the character I had switched my suspicion toward was going to be correct. But no! It was my original suspect and, in the light of the background subject matter of the story, I felt somewhat “cursed” to have fallen for the author’s sleight-of-hand.
It is always exciting to discover an author who pleases your taste and has a major body of work to keep you entertained for years. I won’t have to wait for Carr’s next novel. They are plenty and my friend Pierce Waters was quite correct to have pointed me toward Carr as the finest craftsman of the “locked room mystery.” The solution to Papa Là Bas makes absolute perfect sense when you find out how it was…er…executed.
December 1, 2024
It is widely agreed that John Dickson Carr declined towards the end of his career, and that this novel (1968) is one of his worst. Its reputation is probably less dire than Dark of the Moon, but Papa-la-Bas takes place antebellum New Orleans, and John Dickson Carr's politics are awful, so this has the opportunity to be wretched in very different ways than a lot of his poorly-received novels. But, let it be known that I remember enjoying The Cavalier's Cup, which also has a bad reputation; I didn't come into this book with high expectations, but I didn't come in with my knife out, either.
So what does English-raised proto-libertarian John Dickson Carr think of the American institution of slavery? If I tell you that his detective is Judah Philip Benjamin, vocal slavery advocate and future member of Jefferson Davis's cabinet, and that John Dickson Carr, in his non-fiction notes at the end of the book, refers to the Civil War as “the War Between the States,” does that give you a hint? Jesus Chris, man. In Carr's pseudo-defense, the fictional iteration of this character opposes slavery, but purely on economic grounds; it's cheaper to hire Irishmen for dangerous jobs than to buy slaves to do them. If any character in this novel acknowledges slavery as a moral question, it's to come down on the pro-slavery side of things..
The obvious counterpoint is that it's a historical novel set in a slave state, and it's naive to assume that writers are using their characters as mouthpieces. To which I say: ordinarily that's true, but Carr uses his characters as his mouthpieces all the time, in every novel of his that I've read. He does not create morally ambiguous characters we're supposed to struggle with, you are supposed to admire and agree with his protagonists. And you don't have to take my word for it; John Dickson Carr, who ought to know, described himself as a “Confederate supporter” (Douglas Green, John Dickson Carr: The Man Who Explained Miracles).
Having talked about the slavery apologetics, I should mention the absolutely stunning misogyny. It's just a little embarrassing to say; Carr has one of his male leads spank his girlfriend, and everyone acts as if that's good and normal. Carr was married! Did his wife read his books? If so, what did she think of the scene where our hero talks about how spanking women is good and normal, as long as you don't seriously rough them up? Good god.
So … other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?
This novel is awful for reasons that have nothing to do with its politics.
Carr is accused, in this phase of his writing, of using dialogue as a clumsy expositional tool, which is correct, but when you put it like that it doesn't sound so bad—he writes first person limited detective novels, of course a lot of information is provided via dialogue. But there's exposition, and then there's exposition. Here's an example. On the anniversary of Delphine Lalaurie (a real-life serial killer whose innocence Carr is ill-advisedly championing) being driven from the country, one of the instigators of that driving-out is going to die from a fall, seemingly due to a heart condition. But how can John Dickson Carr let his readers know that it's the anniversary, and that the soon-to-be-dead man has a heart condition? If it's 1968 and you're John Dickson Carr, you have a character say: “I do wish Horace Rutherford, with his lame leg and his bad heart condition, wouldn't prance around and strike poses everywhere. If he had a fall it would kill him, and what would Amelia Rutherford say then? And it was just this day twenty-four years ago, come to think about it, that Delphine Lalaurie fled the country with her house in ruins and the mob howling after her. But it's barely half-past ten in the evening, you know; the day's not over yet, is it?” And I can only swear to you that I'm not hiding context that makes this seem less insane; they were talking about an annoying guest who insists on singing for them and making everyone listen, the speaker drops that amazing paragraph at the end of a chapter apropos of nothing, and in the next chapter we've jumped forward a little in time and nobody refers back to it.
When people in this novel aren't providing horrible exposition, they're still acting unlike anything on earth. Macrae has been tormented for months by the belief that he's being followed and observed. In an early chapter, a guest of his goes briefly outside, and reports that a stranger is watching the house. Imagine how you would respond if, after months of suspicion, you finally got outside confirmation that you're being spied upon? Here's how Macrae responds:
“You are mistaken, Madame de Sancarre. There's nobody there; nobody at all!”
It doesn't later turn out that he was intentionally playing it cool so as not to alarm his guest, or anything like that. That appears to be his real and genuine reaction, given, to be clear, without going to the window to look for himself. And speaking of normal human responses, his guest replies:
“Oh, very well. You ought to know, I suppose.”
He … ought to know, without getting up and checking, whether someone is across the street from his house?
Or how about when he tells a friend of his that he thinks he's being watched, and about an event (someone breaking his window) that occurred last night:
“There was one incident Tom had not mentioned, and would have had the tact not to mention in any case. However, since he knew nothing of a certain girl with tawny hair and grey-blue eyes, he could not have mentioned it if he had wanted to.” Now we, the readers, can assume that if Macrae is still thinking of this girl, she's going to be important, but from an in-book point of view … what is Macrae thinking? His friend, when explaining something that happened last night, did not include a totally unrelated romantic interlude that happened months ago? Where is this coming from? Carr obviously wants to keep this meeting fresh in his readers' mind, because he's about to introduce the masked woman, but he's completely collapsed as a writer, and cannot figure out how to do so naturally.
The writing in this novel is so alienating and disorienting that talking about the actual mystery seems superfluous; even if it were great, I wouldn't recommend this. As it is, it's embarrassing. This is another impossible crime novel; someone is seemingly pushed down a set of stairs, but people were watching, there was nobody there, you know the drill. Even at his best, John Dickson Carr would devise crimes that require the criminal to have some specific talent, and then struggle to inconspicuously let us know that a suspect has that talent. If a character in a John Dickson Carr book is mentioned in passing to have been a long-jumper in college, or to have spent a month working at a circus in some capacity, sit up and take note. This is not Carr at his best; the only way anyone could read this book and not figure out how the “impossible crime” was done is if they read the paragraph where the necessary clue is given and then decide that it's so insultingly obvious that it must be a red herring. And since I was not giving this book credit for anything by the time I got to that passage, I did not make that error. Nor did I struggle to guess the culprit.
John Dickson Carr had a major stroke in 1963, and it's widely assumed by fans that his collapse as a writer was due to genuine cognitive problems that resulted. In spite of his forays into literal slavery apologetics and misogyny, I feel bad for him, and am writing this review more in sorrow than in anger. But obviously, don't read this book. He wrote over seventy novels, many of them acknowledged masterpieces. I don't know why you're on the Goodreads page for this long out of print novel that everyone hates, but go read The Red Widow Murders, or The Crooked Hinge, or The Three Coffins, or the Punch and Judy Murders, or the Judas Window, or The Problem of the Green Capsule, or virtually anything other than this.
So what does English-raised proto-libertarian John Dickson Carr think of the American institution of slavery? If I tell you that his detective is Judah Philip Benjamin, vocal slavery advocate and future member of Jefferson Davis's cabinet, and that John Dickson Carr, in his non-fiction notes at the end of the book, refers to the Civil War as “the War Between the States,” does that give you a hint? Jesus Chris, man. In Carr's pseudo-defense, the fictional iteration of this character opposes slavery, but purely on economic grounds; it's cheaper to hire Irishmen for dangerous jobs than to buy slaves to do them. If any character in this novel acknowledges slavery as a moral question, it's to come down on the pro-slavery side of things..
The obvious counterpoint is that it's a historical novel set in a slave state, and it's naive to assume that writers are using their characters as mouthpieces. To which I say: ordinarily that's true, but Carr uses his characters as his mouthpieces all the time, in every novel of his that I've read. He does not create morally ambiguous characters we're supposed to struggle with, you are supposed to admire and agree with his protagonists. And you don't have to take my word for it; John Dickson Carr, who ought to know, described himself as a “Confederate supporter” (Douglas Green, John Dickson Carr: The Man Who Explained Miracles).
Having talked about the slavery apologetics, I should mention the absolutely stunning misogyny. It's just a little embarrassing to say; Carr has one of his male leads spank his girlfriend, and everyone acts as if that's good and normal. Carr was married! Did his wife read his books? If so, what did she think of the scene where our hero talks about how spanking women is good and normal, as long as you don't seriously rough them up? Good god.
So … other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?
This novel is awful for reasons that have nothing to do with its politics.
Carr is accused, in this phase of his writing, of using dialogue as a clumsy expositional tool, which is correct, but when you put it like that it doesn't sound so bad—he writes first person limited detective novels, of course a lot of information is provided via dialogue. But there's exposition, and then there's exposition. Here's an example. On the anniversary of Delphine Lalaurie (a real-life serial killer whose innocence Carr is ill-advisedly championing) being driven from the country, one of the instigators of that driving-out is going to die from a fall, seemingly due to a heart condition. But how can John Dickson Carr let his readers know that it's the anniversary, and that the soon-to-be-dead man has a heart condition? If it's 1968 and you're John Dickson Carr, you have a character say: “I do wish Horace Rutherford, with his lame leg and his bad heart condition, wouldn't prance around and strike poses everywhere. If he had a fall it would kill him, and what would Amelia Rutherford say then? And it was just this day twenty-four years ago, come to think about it, that Delphine Lalaurie fled the country with her house in ruins and the mob howling after her. But it's barely half-past ten in the evening, you know; the day's not over yet, is it?” And I can only swear to you that I'm not hiding context that makes this seem less insane; they were talking about an annoying guest who insists on singing for them and making everyone listen, the speaker drops that amazing paragraph at the end of a chapter apropos of nothing, and in the next chapter we've jumped forward a little in time and nobody refers back to it.
When people in this novel aren't providing horrible exposition, they're still acting unlike anything on earth. Macrae has been tormented for months by the belief that he's being followed and observed. In an early chapter, a guest of his goes briefly outside, and reports that a stranger is watching the house. Imagine how you would respond if, after months of suspicion, you finally got outside confirmation that you're being spied upon? Here's how Macrae responds:
“You are mistaken, Madame de Sancarre. There's nobody there; nobody at all!”
It doesn't later turn out that he was intentionally playing it cool so as not to alarm his guest, or anything like that. That appears to be his real and genuine reaction, given, to be clear, without going to the window to look for himself. And speaking of normal human responses, his guest replies:
“Oh, very well. You ought to know, I suppose.”
He … ought to know, without getting up and checking, whether someone is across the street from his house?
Or how about when he tells a friend of his that he thinks he's being watched, and about an event (someone breaking his window) that occurred last night:
“There was one incident Tom had not mentioned, and would have had the tact not to mention in any case. However, since he knew nothing of a certain girl with tawny hair and grey-blue eyes, he could not have mentioned it if he had wanted to.” Now we, the readers, can assume that if Macrae is still thinking of this girl, she's going to be important, but from an in-book point of view … what is Macrae thinking? His friend, when explaining something that happened last night, did not include a totally unrelated romantic interlude that happened months ago? Where is this coming from? Carr obviously wants to keep this meeting fresh in his readers' mind, because he's about to introduce the masked woman, but he's completely collapsed as a writer, and cannot figure out how to do so naturally.
The writing in this novel is so alienating and disorienting that talking about the actual mystery seems superfluous; even if it were great, I wouldn't recommend this. As it is, it's embarrassing. This is another impossible crime novel; someone is seemingly pushed down a set of stairs, but people were watching, there was nobody there, you know the drill. Even at his best, John Dickson Carr would devise crimes that require the criminal to have some specific talent, and then struggle to inconspicuously let us know that a suspect has that talent. If a character in a John Dickson Carr book is mentioned in passing to have been a long-jumper in college, or to have spent a month working at a circus in some capacity, sit up and take note. This is not Carr at his best; the only way anyone could read this book and not figure out how the “impossible crime” was done is if they read the paragraph where the necessary clue is given and then decide that it's so insultingly obvious that it must be a red herring. And since I was not giving this book credit for anything by the time I got to that passage, I did not make that error. Nor did I struggle to guess the culprit.
John Dickson Carr had a major stroke in 1963, and it's widely assumed by fans that his collapse as a writer was due to genuine cognitive problems that resulted. In spite of his forays into literal slavery apologetics and misogyny, I feel bad for him, and am writing this review more in sorrow than in anger. But obviously, don't read this book. He wrote over seventy novels, many of them acknowledged masterpieces. I don't know why you're on the Goodreads page for this long out of print novel that everyone hates, but go read The Red Widow Murders, or The Crooked Hinge, or The Three Coffins, or the Punch and Judy Murders, or the Judas Window, or The Problem of the Green Capsule, or virtually anything other than this.
June 7, 2017
Set in New Orleans shortly before the "War between the States", as Carr would probably have called it.
The British consul is drawn into a murder mystery, while also falling in love with a woman.
Recently reread the book, and I revised my opinion upwards. It is not a bad mystery, and fairly clued, though not up to the standards of Carr's best.
The depiction of Southern life in this period is well-done regarded as fiction, and might well be accurate in many respects, but the evident sympathy for the southern side in the Civil War and its "peculiar institution" is off-putting. I would not say it portrays blacks in a racist way, but the picture it gives of slavery is too rosy and there is no evidence of a moral problem with the principle of slavery. My grade is only based on the work as pure fiction, not taking into account any moral qualms with the work.
The British consul is drawn into a murder mystery, while also falling in love with a woman.
Recently reread the book, and I revised my opinion upwards. It is not a bad mystery, and fairly clued, though not up to the standards of Carr's best.
The depiction of Southern life in this period is well-done regarded as fiction, and might well be accurate in many respects, but the evident sympathy for the southern side in the Civil War and its "peculiar institution" is off-putting. I would not say it portrays blacks in a racist way, but the picture it gives of slavery is too rosy and there is no evidence of a moral problem with the principle of slavery. My grade is only based on the work as pure fiction, not taking into account any moral qualms with the work.
July 20, 2009
Historical mystery that takes place in old New Orleans in 1857. Involves romance, mystery and suspense, voodoo and historical tidbits. The story lines revolve around a British diplomat posted in New Orleans, his friends, acquaintances, servants, and a beautiful mysterious masked woman. Action is just over a few days. Quite atmospheric but dispite the voodoo element and the setting right before the Civil War this is a fairly slow moving book. Written in the 60's (I thought it was older than that)this book would be enjoyed by those who enjoy the more gentle romantic suspense novels of writers like Victoria Holt, Phyllis Whitney, Mary Stewart, etc.
January 24, 2018
Honestly, I had read enough reverence for John Dickson Carr as the king of the locked-door whodunits to have expectations, and I wish I hadn't. Carr does play fair with the reader, distributing clues along the narrative, and shares ample history research to portray an age's mores best left to antiquity. Papa La-Bas was slow-going for the first third, it requires patience.
March 29, 2020
On the upside: A depiction of New Orleans in 1858 that you can follow on a map. The descriptions of the gaslit streets and stately homes of that New Orleans. It was entrancing to this newcomer to NOLA. I loved the fact that, at the back of the book, Carr wrote about what parts of the book are factual and where he took liberties. He clearly did a tremendous amount of resear.
The downside: I kept checking to make sure this book was really, really published 1968. Does anyone here remember 1968? Sure, the novel depicts an earlier era and the style is that of Carr's conception of how people would have spoken in 1858 New Orleans. Yes, I did understand that he was consciously evoking Victorian sensation novels and the earlier Gothic since these literary forebears are mentioned in the text.
BUT--This is going to make me sound like I'm holding this book to a standard from our own era, but I think it is possible to write about a time, let's say 1858, just before the Civil War, and from the perspective of characters, let's say the totally-into-slavery South, and still infuse the story with some sense of a different sensibility, a different moral or ethical standard. It is possible to show empathy to sexist, racist characters on the page and still show that you, the writer, are not on their side.
That's not happening here. Yes, the book shows a cross-section of the society of this part of the South and it has arguments coming out of the mouths of the white folks making all the arguments for the southern strategy soon to be in evidence when war begins. At every point in the story, the idea of abolition is badmouthed. We do get a bit of an outsider's perspective from the British consul but what does he say about slavery? He points out that it wasn't long ago that slavery was outlawed in England.
I held out hope for one character, whose strange behavior eventually seems to be connected to discovery of the wrongs of slavery and, also, the injustice done to "quadroons," the hypocrisy of a society that, even among the emancipated insists on relegating them to an outsider status because of their mixed racial heritage. The Quadroon Ball that is depicted is described as little better than a slave market and the practice of white men keeping a "quadroon" mistress on the side is shown to be an accepted part of the social scene. Is there any character who denounces this practice? No. It's described as an "amusement" and attended by some of our white gentlemen characters. And does the one character for whom I held out hope actually change and learn and stand as a voice of compassion or empathy in the book? No. This character is finally shown to be the worst kind of brainless, superficial dilettante of suffering, scurrying back to the old family manse after encountering a dirty house.
This is the book in which a young woman who has shown a bit of independence and an unhappiness with social constraints is roughly grabbed by her "intended" who has broken down her bedroom door, then she is spanked over his knee, and thrown across the room. Ho hum.
Yes, the whole thing smacks of Gone with the Wind without the Technicolor. And it is not rendered ironically or with a distance that can be interpreted as critique.
There are three other things I will comment on:
First, the portrayal of "voodoo" or vodou in this book is kind of interesting. It is made clear (since we are told several times) that the practice is not devil-worship and that it can be used for good and for ill. That, in itself, stands out in the book that is otherwise filled to the brim with stereotypes.
Second, I'm sorry, cozy-lovers out there--be well, my friends!--but I am more of a hardboiled kinda woman, so I just can't stand it when the final (she stops to count the pages) 18 pages of the book are devoted to (mostly) one person (with interruptions and exclamations by the lady folk) explaining to everyone gathered in a room what really happened. And the whole thing beggars belief and is not at all original or entertaining.
Finally, the character who really becomes the central character is someone who was a real person, Judah P. Benjamin. At the time depicted, he is a US senator. He shortly after 1858 becomes Attorney General, Secretary of War and Secretary of State in Jefferson Davis's cabinet. The author did a great deal of research on him (bibliography, p. 273). He's a curious character about whom I'd like to know more. Yes, the South was, and continues to be, a very complicated place, full of contradictions.
I'll stop here. In summary, I was disappointed in many ways and was very uncomfortable with the book overall. I've read one other book by the so-famous Carr and that's enough for me.
The downside: I kept checking to make sure this book was really, really published 1968. Does anyone here remember 1968? Sure, the novel depicts an earlier era and the style is that of Carr's conception of how people would have spoken in 1858 New Orleans. Yes, I did understand that he was consciously evoking Victorian sensation novels and the earlier Gothic since these literary forebears are mentioned in the text.
BUT--This is going to make me sound like I'm holding this book to a standard from our own era, but I think it is possible to write about a time, let's say 1858, just before the Civil War, and from the perspective of characters, let's say the totally-into-slavery South, and still infuse the story with some sense of a different sensibility, a different moral or ethical standard. It is possible to show empathy to sexist, racist characters on the page and still show that you, the writer, are not on their side.
That's not happening here. Yes, the book shows a cross-section of the society of this part of the South and it has arguments coming out of the mouths of the white folks making all the arguments for the southern strategy soon to be in evidence when war begins. At every point in the story, the idea of abolition is badmouthed. We do get a bit of an outsider's perspective from the British consul but what does he say about slavery? He points out that it wasn't long ago that slavery was outlawed in England.
I held out hope for one character, whose strange behavior eventually seems to be connected to discovery of the wrongs of slavery and, also, the injustice done to "quadroons," the hypocrisy of a society that, even among the emancipated insists on relegating them to an outsider status because of their mixed racial heritage. The Quadroon Ball that is depicted is described as little better than a slave market and the practice of white men keeping a "quadroon" mistress on the side is shown to be an accepted part of the social scene. Is there any character who denounces this practice? No. It's described as an "amusement" and attended by some of our white gentlemen characters. And does the one character for whom I held out hope actually change and learn and stand as a voice of compassion or empathy in the book? No. This character is finally shown to be the worst kind of brainless, superficial dilettante of suffering, scurrying back to the old family manse after encountering a dirty house.
This is the book in which a young woman who has shown a bit of independence and an unhappiness with social constraints is roughly grabbed by her "intended" who has broken down her bedroom door, then she is spanked over his knee, and thrown across the room. Ho hum.
Yes, the whole thing smacks of Gone with the Wind without the Technicolor. And it is not rendered ironically or with a distance that can be interpreted as critique.
There are three other things I will comment on:
First, the portrayal of "voodoo" or vodou in this book is kind of interesting. It is made clear (since we are told several times) that the practice is not devil-worship and that it can be used for good and for ill. That, in itself, stands out in the book that is otherwise filled to the brim with stereotypes.
Second, I'm sorry, cozy-lovers out there--be well, my friends!--but I am more of a hardboiled kinda woman, so I just can't stand it when the final (she stops to count the pages) 18 pages of the book are devoted to (mostly) one person (with interruptions and exclamations by the lady folk) explaining to everyone gathered in a room what really happened. And the whole thing beggars belief and is not at all original or entertaining.
Finally, the character who really becomes the central character is someone who was a real person, Judah P. Benjamin. At the time depicted, he is a US senator. He shortly after 1858 becomes Attorney General, Secretary of War and Secretary of State in Jefferson Davis's cabinet. The author did a great deal of research on him (bibliography, p. 273). He's a curious character about whom I'd like to know more. Yes, the South was, and continues to be, a very complicated place, full of contradictions.
I'll stop here. In summary, I was disappointed in many ways and was very uncomfortable with the book overall. I've read one other book by the so-famous Carr and that's enough for me.
July 6, 2019
Un giallo gradevolissimo del grande Carr. Il racconto, ambientato nella New Orleans nella seconda metà del XIX secolo, mescola assieme momenti di tensione, di eventi sovrannaturali, delitti e sparizioni impossibili e scene ricche di humour. Ho trovato particolarmente brillante la sparizione impossibile all'interno di una carrozza (sebbene questo enigma venga risolto a metà libro). Ingegnosa anche la soluzione agli altri crimini impossibili sebbene qui Carr non abbia saputo orientare il lettore altrove. La soluzione era abbastanza ovvia, così come lapalissiano era il colpevole. Ma Carr, nonostante ciò, riesce a farsi leggere molto bene, tanto che anche dopo aver capito l'inghippo, ho continuato ad immergermi in questo libro con entusiasmo.
June 4, 2024
A breathless shell game. I know they say New Orleans doesn't sleep, and at least the people in this manic work don't. They rush around at all hours in carriages and skulk about in the dark. I was surprised that the book is set at a time when Marie Levaux is still alive and Delphine LaLaurie has only been gone twenty years. Two disappointments for me: 1) JDC seems to want us to think that the horrible legend of evil at the LaLaurie house was false. Sorry, not swallowing that one. 2) There is mention of Voodoo which seems kind of silly and amateurish. This feels like a French farce, where characters pop in through doorways and windows.
This one disappointed me.
This one disappointed me.
February 25, 2022
I really enjoyed this story, which included a bit of history, as explained at the end of the book. I would have given 5 stars but in places the writing was stilted and the dialog hard to follow. Sometimes I had to reread certain sections to understand what a character was saying, because the spoken words were in a french-english or a cockney vernacular. The part part of the book slow on reading but picked up pace midway through. I did figure out the killer but not all the particulars.
March 21, 2026
" ... Raduniamo le nostre informazioni; esaminiamo il nostro problema: soprattutto, cerchiamo di determinare con esattezza in cosa consiste. ..."
Un giallo storico in cui i personaggi hanno decisamente una moralità molto bassa.
Le tracce da seguire per scovare il criminale ci sono ma bisogna fare una grande attenzione per raccoglierle.
Un giallo storico in cui i personaggi hanno decisamente una moralità molto bassa.
Le tracce da seguire per scovare il criminale ci sono ma bisogna fare una grande attenzione per raccoglierle.
May 2, 2021
A historical Carr. New Orleans 1858. Slavery, Voodoo and misdirection. Slow moving for the most part, and I guessed correctly who the murderer was. Hence two stars only.
August 17, 2025
Every once in a while, I pick up another John Dickson Carr novel in the hopes that I will discover something on par with The Devil in Velvet or Captain Cut-Throat. So far, I've been disappointed. Papa La-Bas must qualify as another near miss. Set in New Orleans in 1858 (aside from Carr himself so stating in the appendix, there is internal evidence; one of the characters is described as having been born in 1827, and being 31 at the time of the narrative; 1827 + 31 = 1858; also, reference is made to the presidency of James Buchanan, who was in office from 1857 to 1861; etc.), Carr provides plenty of local color without actually bringing the city to life. This is a mystery but also a romance--with the accent on romance, of the bodice-ripping variety. Carr was an excellent writer, and this is readable and entertaining as far as it goes. It just didn't go quite as far as I'd hoped.
September 15, 2007
This is one of Carr´s historicals, set in New Orleans just before the Civil War. The background is accurate, as always, though he did not go very deeply into Voodoo. The plot refers back to the famous Delphine Lalaurie case, which Barbara Hambly has treated in some detail in her Benjamin January series.
February 12, 2013
This was the 2nd Carr book I read. Not long after reading his masterpiece The Hollow Man. Not in the same league as THM but a readable murder mystery. There is a nice twist at the end which I did not see coming which ties the whole story together.
March 29, 2014
I enjoyed this book because I have spent a lot of time in New Orleans. Mr. Carr did an excellent job of putting the reader right in the heart of the city. It reminded me of a lot of the "gothic romances" I used to read as a teen.
July 15, 2012
One of Carr's best. A fascinatingly atmospheric tour of old New Orleans, with a plot to match. (A non-series novel.)
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