City Blues Quartet Reading Order
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Carnaval | 2014 | N/A |
| The Axeman’s Jazz / The Axeman | 2014 | Buy |
| Dead Man’s Blues | 2016 | Buy |
| Mafioso | 2016 | N/A |
| Gangsterns klagan | 2019 | N/A |
| The Mobster’s Lament | 2019 | Buy |
| Sunset Swing | 2022 | Buy |
Standalone Novels
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Palace of Shadows | 2023 | Buy |
Ray Celestin is a British author who writes historical crime fiction rooted in American music and urban culture. He is best known for the City Blues Quartet, a four-book series that tracks interconnected characters through New Orleans, Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles from the 1910s to the 1960s. The first novel, The Axeman’s Jazz (also published as The Axeman), was inspired by the real unsolved case of the Axeman of New Orleans.
Beyond the quartet, Celestin has written Palace of Shadows, a standalone novel published in 2023. His writing is known for its attention to period detail and for weaving real historical events into fictional crime narratives.