The White League

Publishers Weekly

Zigal, author of the Colorado sheriff Kurt Muller series, sets this gripping novel of racism, justice denied, retribution and redemption in the upper-class environs of New Orleans circa 1990. Paul Blanchard is CEO of the Blanchard coffee company, a family business that allows him to live a life of genteel ease. This pleasant existence is shattered when Paul's old college roommate, racist Mark Morvant, shows up and announces that he's running for governor, demanding not only that Paul bankroll his campaign effort but that he get the wealthy businessmen from the White League, a sinister secret society, to back him as well. Paul, a progressive Southerner, tries to resist, but Morvant threatens to reveal the dark secret Paul has been harboring-his black girlfriend in college died of a heroin overdose, and Morvant helped him dispose of the body in a bayou. To complicate matters, Paul's childhood friend, Jaren Jarboe, son of beloved Blanchard family retainer Rosetta Jarboe, took the fall for the death. As in any good Southern novel, present events are dictated by the past, and colorful characters from all stations of life perform both honorable and despicable acts. There's plenty of New Orleans lore and even a swipe at a JFK assassination connection in this solidly written, adroitly plotted and satisfyingly ethics-driven tale. (Feb.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Moving away from his Colorado police procedural series (Pariah, 1999, etc.), Zigal offers a slow-moving, literate thriller examining the roots of racism in New Orleans. For nearly 150 years, the Blanchard family has roasted New Orleans' best cup of coffee. Though he's bored with the family business, fortysomething company head Paul Blanchard is comfortably wealthy and well-known in the city's highest social and power circles, when the repugnant, blatantly racist state Congressman Mike Morvant, Blanchard's former Tulane University "frat buddy," demands that Blanchard finance his gubernatorial run and talk Morvant up among the city's elite. If he doesn't, Morvant will reveal how he helped Blanchard cover up a terribly embarrassing situation from Blanchard's wild and crazy years. Blanchard, a liberal Catholic married to a Jewish woman, is closer to his black housekeeper (and her son, currently serving a 30-year-sentence for murder) than he is to the members of his own dysfunctional family. He despises Morvant, though he's intrigued when Morvant also demands that Blanchard secure the support of the White League, a secret society of upper-crust racists whose origins predate the Ku Klux Klan. Blanchard's great-grandfather was a society member, way back during Reconstruction, and though it was thought to have died out, Blanchard's gay, older brother has evidence that their late father was aware of it. Thus begins a rather windy, extravagantly detailed look at the Blanchard family's problematic past, as well as the seamy origins of the city's high society and, predictably, the convoluted ties that bind blacks, whites, Christians, Jews, Creoles, Cajuns in a simmering stew that differs from JamesLee Burke's gumbo in that it is told from the top down-as Blanchard, a child of privilege burdened by guilt, an unraveling marriage, and a daughter about to enter her own wild and crazy years, reexamines his roots and makes some risky decisions. A contrived, deliciously complicated study of racism and what must be done to end it. Agent: Bill Contardi/Brandt & Hochman