THE BOLDEN CYLINDER

Woolworth’s sophomore series mystery involves a priceless phonograph cylinder, arson, and a cold missing-person case.

New Orleans antique dealer Bruneau “Bru” Abellard investigates a turn-of-the-century Edison cylinder that he discovers in a hidden compartment of a sideboard; the name “Clarence” is written on the side of cardboard box containing it. The recorded music on this cylinder is thought to be that of musician Buddy Bolden, “the one who started it all.” Bolden never recorded, but, Abellard explains, “contemporaries said he was the first to take the rhythms of ragtime and marry them to the emotional expressiveness of the blues, and that without that union we wouldn’t have what we now call jazz.” Abellard’s investigation into who’s playing the cornet on the cylinder leads him to Izzy Weisman, an elderly collector of New Orleans memorabilia. No sooner does he provide Abellard with the device that will play the cylinder than a suspicious fire burns Weisman’s house down. The mystery deepens when the body of Arnold Jesse, a 13-year-old missing since 1967, is found in the remains of Weisman’s home. Abellard, an amateur detective and consultant to the New Orleans Police Department, once again teams with childhood friend and property-crimes detective Thibodeaux “Bo” Duplessis. Although Abellard and his girlfriend, historian and puzzle-solver Sallie Mae Maguire, are “on a break,” he relies on her expertise, as well, and they agree to work together. As in his series starter The Lafitte Affair (2024), Woolworth populates his richly atmospheric New Orleans setting with a gallery of colorful, eccentric, and formidable characters. Readers’ mileage may vary on the author’s use of Abellard and Duplessis as alternating narrators, but Prosper Fortune, whom Woolworth introduced in the first novel, is developed in this installment in surprising ways. This is also not a book to read while hungry; Abellard is something of a foodie, and several of the Big Easy’s finest eateries and signature dishes appear over the course of the narrative.

An entertaining follow-up with vivid characters and a rich sense of place.