Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Orleans Mourning | 1989 | Julie Smith | Buy |
| 2 | The Axeman’s Jazz | 1991 | Julie Smith | Buy |
| 3 | Jazz Funeral | 1993 | Julie Smith | Buy |
| 4 | New Orleans Beat | 1994 | Julie Smith | N/A |
| 5 | New Orleans Beat / Death Before Facebook | 1994 | Julie Smith | Buy |
| 6 | House of Blues | 1995 | Julie Smith | Buy |
| 7 | The Kindness of Strangers | 1996 | Julie Smith | Buy |
| 8 | Crescent City Connection / Crescent City Kill | 1997 | Julie Smith | Buy |
| 9 | Crescent City Kill | 1997 | Julie Smith | N/A |
| 10 | 82 Desire | 1998 | Julie Smith | Buy |
| 11 | Mean Woman Blues / Boneyard Blues | 2003 | Julie Smith | Buy |
| 12 | Murder On Magazine | 2018 | Julie Smith | Buy |
| 13 | The Big Crazy | 2019 | Julie Smith | Buy |
| 14 | Three Aces and a Queen | 2017 | Julie Smith | Buy |
The Skip Langdon series by Julie Smith is set in New Orleans and follows Margaret “Skip” Langdon, a tall, socially prominent woman who chose to become a police detective instead of following her Uptown family’s expectations. The series debut, New Orleans Mourning (1989), won the Edgar Award for Best Novel and established Smith as one of the top mystery writers working with a New Orleans setting. Skip’s cases take her through every layer of the city, from Garden District mansions to Tremé jazz clubs.
The books are steeped in New Orleans culture, food, music, and politics. Skip is an outsider within her own department because of her privileged background, and an outsider in her family because of her career choice. That tension gives the series its backbone. Over fourteen books spanning three decades, the stories track both Skip’s professional rise and her personal life, including recurring characters like her boyfriend Steve Steinman and her protege turned cop, Angel Valentino.
Smith returned to the series in the late 2010s with Murder On Magazine and The Big Crazy after a long gap following Mean Woman Blues in 2003. The later books find Skip dealing with a changed New Orleans, post-Katrina, while still working cases that dig into the city’s tangled social structures.