New Orleans, 1918. The birth of jazz, the Spanish flu, an ax murderer on the loose. The lives of a traumatized cop, a conflicted Mafia matriarch, and a brilliant trumpeter converge—and Crescent City gets the rich, dark, sweeping audiobook it so deserves.
From Odds Against Tomorrow author Nathaniel Rich, one of the most inventive minds of his generation, King Zeno is a historical crime audiobook and a searching inquiry into man's dreams of immortality.
New Orleans in the early twentieth century is a city determined to reshape its destiny and, with it, the nation's. Downtown, a new American music is born. In Storyville, prostitution is outlawed and the police retake the streets with maximum violence. In the Ninth Ward, laborers break ground on a gigantic canal that will split the city, a work of staggering human ingenuity intended to restore New Orleans's faded mercantile glory. The war is ending and a prosperous new age dawns. But everything is thrown into chaos by a series of murders committed by an ax-wielding maniac with a peculiar taste in music.
The murders scramble the fates of three people from different corners of town. Detective William Bastrop is an army veteran haunted by an act of wartime cowardice, recklessly bent on redemption. Isadore Zeno is a jazz cornetist with a dangerous side hustle. Beatrice Vizzini is the widow of a crime boss, who yearns to take the family business straight. Each nurtures private dreams of worldly glory and eternal life, their ambitions carrying them into dark territories of obsession, paranoia, and madness.
In New Orleans, a city built on swamp, nothing stays buried for long. Listeners will thrill at the chance to engage in a little imaginative excavation.
Release date:
January 9, 2018
Publisher:
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Print pages:
400
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Joseph Maggio and Wife Slain in Grocery Home During Night
BROTHER OF MAN IN NEXT ROOM HEARD GROANS
For the last six years Joseph Maggio, a native of Sicily, has run a small grocery at 4901 Magnolia street, corner of Upperline.
It was a typical establishment of its kind—the grocery in the front and the rooms of Maggio and his wife in the rear. In one of them there also lived Maggio’s brother, Andrew, a barber.
The grocery served a small and mixed clientele, half black and half white. Its receipts were not enormous, but they were sufficient to keep Maggio and his wife in comfort.
HAD NO KNOWN ENEMIES
So far as is known they had no enemies. Born of a farming class, they had attained the distinction of owning a small business—the ambition of nine out of ten immigrants. They had been married fifteen years. Altogether a commonplace, contented couple, with a long and peaceful life ahead of them.
At 5:30 o’clock Thursday morning the police received a telephone call from Andrew Maggio. They should come to Upperline and Magnolia at once. His brother and sister-in-law had been killed.
A squad found the bodies of Maggio and his wife lying in bed, throats and heads cut open by repeated blows from an ax. The story of a wholly murderous intent was told by the fact that, of the dozen blows struck, all but one or two would have been sufficient to kill. But the murderer had wanted to make sure …
New Orleans States, 5/24/18:
TERROR: FOUR MEN FALL VICTIM TO BANDITS; ONE LOSES HIS SHOES
The waylaying of four early-morning pedestrians in three separate holdups in the upper-rear section of the city Friday brought the negro highwaymen but scant returns. For hours a squad of men was busy rounding up negro suspects.
The victims of Friday morning’s holdups are: Charles Lowe, ticket agent at the Union Station; Florin Bodemuller, 16, of 1748 Jackson avenue; Joseph Tolozzio, banana packer for the United Fruit Company; and Richard Boland, newsdealer at Canal and Royal streets.
Lowe had gone to a bakery shop at Clio and Liberty streets, where he purchased two loaves of bread at 2:30 o’clock Friday morning. While waiting for a streetcar, he was approached by a negro, who forced him to throw up his hands at the point of a revolver. The negro took from Lowe thirty cents and compelled him to give up his blue worsted coat.
Bodemuller was returning from a dance at 1 o’clock when a negro held him up with a revolver at Jackson avenue and Brainard street. After taking a Waltham watch and ribbon fob, valued at $30, Bodemuller was forced to remove his shoes, valued at $4.50. The youth was compelled to walk home in his stockings.
Tolozzio and Boland got out of a streetcar at Howard avenue and Carondelet street and were confronted by a negro with a revolver, who forced them to throw up their hands. From Tolozzio the highwayman secured $1.50 and from Boland twenty cents in pennies. Tolozzio and Boland set up cries for help and the highwayman fired a shot at them as he fled.
New Orleans Item, 5/25/18:
BAKERY DRIVER WOUNDED BY NEGRO HIGHWAYMAN
Victim of a negro highwayman’s bullet, received at 2 o’clock Saturday morning, Theodore Blaum, driver of wa bakery wagon, is in Charity Hospital in a critical condition. Chances of recovery are said to be slight. He was shot in the left breast, the bullet just missing his heart.
Blaum was fired upon without warning as he emerged from an alley in the rear of 1813 Baronne street, where he was delivering bread. After shooting him, says Blaum, the negro took $3 from his clothing. Blaum climbed back on his wagon and drove to the hospital. The negro escaped.
Hours earlier, Charlton R. Beattie, former U.S. district attorney, residing in the De Soto Hotel, was fired upon by a negro highwayman at Coliseum, near First street. He was not injured. Henry Baldwin, president of A. Baldwin & Co., who witnessed the assault from the gallery of his home, was fired upon when he yelled at the footpad. Mr. Baldwin was not hurt. The negro got nothing.
The police believe the man who held up Mr. Beattie is the one who shot Blaum. The descriptions tally. The highwayman is said to be about 25 years old, 5 feet 8 inches, and 135 pounds. He wore a brown shirt and black pants.
The holdups Saturday morning made five “highway jobs” in 48 hours. In all cases the assailant was a negro.
Although the negro held a revolver to his head, Beattie refused to comply.
“I’ll not do it,” he told the robber, when ordered to throw up his hands.
The negro’s loud talk attracted Mr. Baldwin.
“As I came out on the upstairs gallery to investigate the loud talking,” Mr. Baldwin told the police, “I saw a negro pointing a gun to the head of a white man. I hollered to the negro and he backed away and fired two shots.”
Mr. Blaum is married.
New Orleans Times-Picayune, 5/26/18:
AX MURDER SUSPECT RELEASED
Withstands Grilling by Police Chief
Andrew Maggio, held since Thursday in connection with the murder of his brother and sister-in-law, keepers of a grocery store at Magnolia street, was released from custody by Superintendent Mooney Saturday night.
“It is terrible that I should be accused of killing my brother when I am innocent,” said Maggio. “I may say something at another time, but I can’t talk about it tonight.”
New Orleans States, 5/26/18:
NEAR DEATH AS BANDIT FIRES IN SIXTH HOLDUP
Saturday night was no exception to the rule applying to the nightly holdups since Wednesday, during which time six holdups of citizens occurred. In every case the highwayman was a negro who held his victim at bay with a revolver.
The latest highway victim was J. E. Ragan, supervisor for the Illinois Central Railroad at the Union Station.
Mr. Ragan was on his way home shortly after 11 o’clock. When he reached Baudin and Rendon streets, a negro jumped out from a hiding place and commanded Ragan to throw up his hands. Instead of complying, Mr. Ragan leaped forward and grabbed the hand which held the revolver. A struggle followed, during which shots were fired. Fortunately they all went wild. The negro escaped. He secured nothing.
POLICE SQUAD ON SCENE
Armed with riot guns, and led by Senior Captain Capo, a squad of policemen scoured the neighborhood in a vain search.
The highwayman Saturday night did not escape without leaving telltale evidence behind. The police are in possession of a dark slouch hat which remained in the grip of Mr. Ragan, who tried desperately to hold on to the negro until assistance could reach him.
New Orleans Times-Picayune, 5/26/18:
HIGHWAYMAN TAKES CLOTHES
Another holdup in the series of highway robberies of white persons by armed negroes was reported to the police early Sunday morning. Richard Bray, 17, was relieved of $1.40 and a bundle of clothes, at Banks and Clark streets.
The negro answers the description of the one who, earlier in the night, held up and shot at J. E. Ragan. As in the earlier robbery, the highwayman left his hat in making his getaway.
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