A FRENCH QUARTER MASSACRE, ANOTHER IN MISSISSIPPI, AND A JIGSAW OF A PLOT!Never have Tony Dunbar’s diabolically complex plotting, on-the-nose characters, and hawk-like ability to seize upon and capture everything New Orleans been on better display than in his jaw-dropping new thriller. FLAG BOY, the TENTH entry in his popular Tubby Dubonnet series, is Dunbar’s most wickedly clever mystery since … most wickedly clever mystery since his Edgar-nominated CROOKED MAN, as dark and stormy a tale as ever slithered its noirish way out of New Orleans.
The set-up alone’s enough to make you believe in the butterfly effect. Two acrobats burglarize a house; a sultan moves into a French Quarter mansion; a Mardi Gras Indian, in the wrong place at the wrong time, is wrongfully arrested; and our hero, lawyer and sometime-detective Tubby Dubonnet, comes upon a double murder while paying a social call in the wilds of Mississippi. Thus is the stage set. You know instantly– because this is a Tubby Dubonnet mystery– that these disparate events are intricately intertwined.
Next, as Elmore Leonard famously never said, all hell breaks loose– and with more than a touch of Leonard’s own brand of wry and knowing humor. You can barely turn the page before a bloody massacre leaves the sultan’s entire family dead; the Indian– now Tubby’s client– gets fingered for this one, too; one of the acrobatic burglars hooks up with Tubby’s best friend; and some way, somehow, Dunbar weaves each of these wildly divergent strands– and a few others– into the kind of old-fashioned puzzle mystery they just don’t write anymore. It’s as if James M. Cain married Agatha Christie.
Nobody but Cain could pack a plot the size of all Louisiana into a space the size of a French Quarter balcony, and nobody but Christie could pull off the kind of riddle wrapped inside a mystery inside an enigma she pioneered. Dunbar does both– and all in one slim, thrill-packed book. Although perhaps at this point his long-time fans are thinking Wait! How does he work the food in? There’s always food! Well, that’s there, too.
Leonard, Christie, and Cain fans should hurry on down, as well as devotees of John Grisham, Michael Connelly, Alafair Burke, Robert Tannenbaum, Lisa Scottoline, and John Ellsworth– in fact, anyone who loves hard-boiled, humorous, noir, or puzzle mysteries, especially all rolled up into an extremely stylish legal thriller.
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Another enjoyable read by Tony Dunbar. As per usual Flag Boy has wonderful characters and settings I’ve come to expect from the author. This book does jump back to Fat Man Blues so that should be read prior to starting Flag Boy.
Love Tony, Tubby, love New Orleans.
Love all Tony Dunbar’s books.
All of the Tubby Dubonnet books I’ve read have been highly entertaining. Tony is not afraid to get his hands a little dirty in his lawyerly pursuits. There is humor in this author’s books, plus a grittiness that you hope your lawyer would have, if you were ever falsely accused of something. An entertaining read.
If you love New Orleans and you really like quirky people, you will totally enjoy the Tubby Dubonnet series. I’ve read the entire series so far (in order is the only way I’ll read a series) and none have disappointed.
I was never sure where this book was going. That is a good thing when you’re reading a mystery. I read this so quickly that I was sad to see it end. I always look forward to reading a new Tubby Dubonet book. I’m sure that I butchered the main character’s name but if you read one of Dunbar’s books, you will know who I was referring to.
A mystery series set in New Orleans. The mystery is a good one, but it’s not the main attraction. Most books and movies are embarrassingly ignorant of the city and its surrounds. Dunbar knows the place intimately. The settings are accurate non-clichés. More important, Dunbar knows how the city works — wide networks of close personal connections, where the main currency is favors. Favors get the hero, lawyer Tubby Dubonnet, into trouble and networks become the means of getting him out. A lovely book.
Loved the characters, and the plots are full of twists with humor.
Disappointing compared to others in the series
Somewhat less deft than the rest of the Tubby Dubonnet series, this book seems to have been written to tie together dangling plot threads from the last two or three tomes. That said, this should clear the decks for the next TD adventure… I look forward to what that may be.
Very different from others in the series. Humor gone, familiar routines ignored.
Thank you, Tony Dunbar, for another rambunctious adventure with Tubby Dubonnet and his weird assortment of friends and enemies. This one is short and sweet…but with a strange twist. In order to solve the mystery, Tubby gathers all of the suspects at the scene of the crime and unmasks the guilty party…exactly the way Agatha Christie ended so many of her stories.
I love Tubby. He’s so real and funny. I love the setting of New Orleans.
All of the Tubby books are entertaining and somewhat educational as to the people, places, food and history of New Orleans.
I waited and waited for a new release from one of my all-time favorite authors, and I finally got it! I love the Tubby Dubonnet series, for many reasons. First, the people are truly characters, interesting and mostly unpredictable, and so New Orleans! The ‘troubles’ they get into, well, can only happen there too! And of coarse, I can ‘See’ the City and ‘Taste’ the food, since I was raised with it all. Only problem is, it makes me want to ‘Go Back Home again’, and it isn’t possible. But reading one of these books in this series, brings me back for a time..and I can Almost taste the wonderful food! Oh, and the mysteries keep me up reading, and happy. Until the Next time, and the next great book…..