Claire DeWitt is the world's greatest PI, a one-time teen detective in Brooklyn and follower of the enigmatic French detective Jacques Silette, whose mysterious handbook "Detection" has led Claire to use the "I-Ching, " omens, prophetic dreams, and mind-expanding drugs. Claire also has deep roots in New Orleans, where she was mentored by the brilliant Constance Darling--until Darling was murdered. When a respected New Orleans DA goes missing during Hurricane Katrina, she returns to her newly wrecked former city to find out why. The clues lead her to Andray Fairview, a young man who had nothing to lose before the storm and has less now. Finding old friends and making new enemies, Claire solves the case, but she's haunted by others gone missing: her best friend and partner in detection, who disappeared from a New York City subway station in 1986, and Jacques Silette's daughter, Belle, stolen from a hotel room and never heard from again. " Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead" is a knockout start to a bracingly original new series.