Asbury's Chicago book is the only one of his I've read so far, and I really enjoyed it. True, I would have liked it a lot better if he had put all the crime and criminals into some sort of context, instead of just cataloguing the city's endless list of sordid deeds and despicable characters, but the source material was so rich that Asbury would have had to really try hard to create a bad book out of it. On your glowing recommendation I'll keep an eye out for the New Orleans book. Asbury also wrote a San Francisco crime book (titled "The Tenderloin", I think) that I've also been meaning to check out.

Pete
www.petelit.com