THE DEVIL'S MUSE

A rookie New Orleans cop discovers that regular rules don't apply during Mardi Gras, when a shooting sets off a cascading series of violent events.

Officer Maureen Coughlin knows working the parade route during Mardi Gras week is unlike any assignment she’s had, and as the only newbie to the city’s biggest party, she wants to make a good impression not only on her fellow officers, but on the public. Loehfelm (Let the Devil Out, 2016, etc.) simmers the various tensions—racial, police versus civilians, power struggles with the NOPD—like the finest of cooks stirring a pot of gumbo with a bomb in it. The first sign of trouble appears when a young man, high and dressed only in neon leggings, runs directly into an SUV. When Coughlin and her team try to ascertain what he's tripping on, their attention is diverted by the sounds of nearby shots. Reaching the scene, they find carnage: a man bleeding out in the street, a little girl hit in the leg, and an elderly woman drenched in blood on the curb. Making matters worse, there's an omnipresent camera crew, a bunch of YouTube documentarians trying to capture the “real” Mardi Gras. Once a suspect is identified and Coughlin takes off after him, the true mayhem begins, when she realizes the person she proudly apprehends is a known offender but an easy arrest is complicated by an unexpected death on the parade route, in-fighting within the department, and a crowd that's as ready to party as it is to beef with police.

Loehfelm doesn't need showy murders or gory scenes to writes crime stories with grit that stay lodged in your brain and get under your skin in the best possible way.