Pat Gallegher Books in Order

Pat Gallegher is the kind of hero who sounds like he should have given up a long time ago. That is one reason these books are so much fun.

Before the series begins, Pat has already lived several lives. He was a seminarian, then a forensic psychologist, then a college professor, and none of those paths held. By the time Joker Poker opens, he is in New Orleans, playing jazz cornet in a rough French Quarter bar, carrying gambling debt, and doing dangerous favors for people who have nowhere else to turn. He is not licensed as a private investigator, but he keeps stumbling into PI work anyway.

The setup is pure hardboiled fiction, but Pat is more unusual than the typical tough guy. He has a conscience, even when it is inconvenient. He knows how damaged he is. He also cannot stop himself from stepping in when someone weaker is getting crushed. In Joker Poker, a missing-person search turns into a murder frame-up. In Voodoo That You Do, Pat gets pulled between mob interests while trying to protect a young runaway whose stepfather is a violent gang boss. The cases are mean, messy, and very New Orleans.

And then the city starts playing backup.

Helms uses the French Quarter, the bars, the back streets, the music, and the city's layered criminal world to give the series its rhythm. Juicy Watusi pushes Pat into a serial murder case that becomes personal when danger closes in on Merlie Comineau, the woman he cares about. Wet Debt digs up a body from the 1930s and turns a renovation project into a trip through old New Orleans crime. Much later, Paid In Spades brings Pat back for two linked missing-person cases that show he has lost none of his knack for finding trouble.

What ties the books together is Pat himself. He is big-hearted, self-mocking, battered, and oddly principled. He can be reckless, but not because he thinks he is invincible. Usually it is because he believes somebody ought to do something, and he is the poor fool standing closest to the problem. That gives the series a strong moral pull beneath all the jazz, wisecracks, and danger.

If you like private-eye novels with atmosphere, this series delivers. If you like flawed heroes who keep trying anyway, it delivers even more. The Pat Gallegher books are hardboiled without being cold, funny without undercutting the stakes, and deeply rooted in place. New Orleans gives them the heat, but Pat gives them the soul.