[Review] Lost River - David Fulmer

Title of Book: Lost River
Series: Storyville #4
Author: David Fulmer
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication Year: 2009
Language: English
Format: Hardback
Pages: 352

The next heart-pounding chapter in Fulmer’s Storyville series featuring New Orleans detective Valentin St. Cyr Autumn 1913. Valentin St. Cyr has been absent from his Storyville stomping grounds for some months, trying to make it in the straight detective world and make a go of it with his longtime love, Justine. But then a man is found dead in a Storyville brothel.The madam immediately turns to the creole detective for help.He resists, but when several more bodies turn up in Storyville, Valentin can’t help but come to the aid of the place—and the people—he tried to leave behind.

Just when he has the case wrapped around his finger, it turns out Valentin has been played.The police captain thinks he’s meddling and may be guilty of murder.He’s on the run, and Justine has turned her back on him, retaliating with a handsome young fellow in a very sporty car. But is she being lured into a trap too?

Lost River is the fourth book in the Storyville series, which follows the adventures of Detective Valentin St. Cyr. Valentin finally decided to stay away from Storyville. He stopped being Anderson’s right hand man. Instead, he worked for several law firms and did their dirty works, keeping those rich white people reputation clean. However, his retirement plan changed when a series of murder was happening (again) at Storyville. At first, he declined the request to help solving the mystery. But in the end, he took the case. Although he said that he did it as a favor, Justine knew that he just couldn’t stay away from Storyville. Justine had warned him not to take the case but Valentin didn’t listen. Causing Justine to rethink about their relationship. Not to mention, a mysterious and handsome young man seems to keep appearing everywhere Justine goes.

Now that I’m in the fourth book, which is the final book, I’ve come to love Storyville’s characters; the slick King of Storyville Tom Anderson, the reliable sidekick ‘Beansoup’ (who now apparently goes by moniker ‘Each’), and of course our main hero Valentin St. Cyr. Reading about them and watching their characters grow is such an enjoyable ride for me. In this book, we see how Anderson is getting tired of the district business because of his age. Valentin and Justine still have a hard time cutting their connection to the district. They’re trying to and when they’re finally settling into domestic life, the murders happen.

The mystery itself is not as mysterious as it usually is. I mean the suspects are there, presented out in the open by the author. It’s obvious who did it. What’s more intriguing is the motif, what drives them to do such thing. The plot is quite intricate and there are twists and turns that made me wonder if this is finally the end of Storyville. Because the real Storyville doesn’t exist anymore.

Overall, I like the second (Jass) and the third (Rampart Street) books better than this one. Unlike the other books from the series, Lost River definitely cannot be read as a standalone. Still, Lost River is a nice ending to the series. Although to be honest I expect more from the ending since this is the final book. But it wrapped up nicely. I give it a 3.5 out of 5 which I rounded up to 4 out of 5.