King Zeno

New Orleans, 1918—an ax murderer draws together a cop, a Mafia matriarch, and a jazz musician in this crime novel by the author of Odds Against Tomorrow.

New Orleans, 1918: A new American music is born, 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.


As the war ends and a prosperous new age dawns, everything is thrown into chaos by a series of ax murderers, which 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 and 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. But in New Orleans, a city built on swamp, nothing stays buried long.

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice and a Paris Review Staff Pick
A January Pick by Salon, Town and Country, Southern Living, and LA Magazine
Praise for King Zeno

"King Zeno is a great detective novel, a fitting tribute to the Crescent City." —The Paris Review

"Rich brings multiple themes together in this roiling genre-blender set in New Orleans in 1918. . . . It's a rich gumbo of ingredients, and Rich stirs them effectively, combining a lyrical, impressionistic style with a sure-handed grasp of the historical moment. . . . A heady mix of literary thriller and high-end historical fiction." —Booklist

"[King Zeno] excels at immersing the reader in the narrative." —Publishers Weekly