Run Baby Run

by Michael Allen Zell

Criminologist Bobby Delery has just returned to New Orleans after decades away, and NOPD is begging for his help to find almost a million dollars stolen from a French Quarter club. He’s only one of many after the money, though. Thieves, church-goers, and everyone else ride the sweaty pace from the Ninth Ward to the foot of Canal Street.

166 pages, Paperback

First published September 30, 2015

About the author

Michael Allen Zell is a New Orleans-based novelist, essayist, and playwright. Zell's work has been published in The Los Angeles Review of Books, Cerise Press, Disonare, Entrepot, Exquisite Corpse, NOLA Defender, Ploughshares, Room 220, and Sleepingfish. Errata, his first novel, was named a 'Top 10 Book of 2012' by The Times-Picayune. His first play, What Do You Say To A Shadow?, was named a 'Top 10 Play of the Year' in 2013 by The Times-Picayune. He has worked as a bookseller since 2001.

Reviews

[Gail Baugniet · Rating 4 out of 5]

A friend sent me this book from Oregon. She does a fair amount of traveling and she picked up the book in New Orleans. Sharing is engrained in her personality and she kindly passed the novel on to me after reading it herself, stating that she enjoyed the mystery and the author's style.

Run Baby Run is a detective story set in New Orleans, written by an author who understands the character of the city and knows its secrets. Because I have had opportunity to visit the Crescent City numerous times, it was fun to read about familiar nooks and crannies.

The mystery plot is well laid out with favorable action scenes and tricky twists that kept me interested to the end.

Fun tidbit: an interesting marketing idea that sticks with me - the publishing company is Lavender Ink and the author's professional book mark is lavender in color.

[Anne Bradley · Rating 2 out of 5]

There was a lot going on in this slim volume. A lot of characters moving on and off the canvas - some with backstory and some without - such that it was hard to tell which I was supposed to care about.

The solution was contrived, but satisfying. Wait - you know what it felt like? A TV pilot. It has a decent premise and a fine opening mystery, but hasn't quite figured out the alchemy yet.