In the raucous, bloody, red-light district of Storyville, New Orleans, in 1907, where two thousand scarlet women practice their trade, where cocaine and opium are sold over the counter, and where rye whiskey flows like an amber river, there's a killer loose. Someone is murdering Storyville prostitutes and marking each killing with a black rose.

As Creole detective Valentin St. Cyr begins to investigate, he encounters a cast of characters drawn from history: Tom Anderson, the political boss who runs Storyville like a private kingdom; Lulu White, the district's most notorious madam; a young piano player who would come to be known as Jelly Roll Morton; and Buddy Bolden, the man who all but invented jazz. No ordinary mystery, Chasing the Devil's Tail is a chilling portrait of musical genius and self-destruction, set at the moment when jazz was born.