Francis Spufford, Cahokia Jazz ***

Like Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Cahokia Jazz is a murder mystery that takes place in an alternative version of the United States. Cahokia was a real-life Native American city, located across the river from present-day St Louis. In the story, Native Americans were not decimated by smallpox and retain power in Cahokia in 1922.

The book starts strong with an atmospheric crime scene and all the noir elements in place: night, fog, a violent murder, detectives in fedoras, untrustworthy witnesses, hints of powerful subterranean social forces at work. It's not long before the murder becomes secondary to the public reaction and inflamed racial tensions. Which is fine, except that the portrait of city politics is rather too superficial. For example, overt conflict breaks out between the Klan and the native population, with the city's third ethnic group receiving barely a mention. I also felt that the characters were underdeveloped. 

The murder plot was fine. But I didn't get a sense of Cahokia as a living, breathing city, nor an idea of how the United States would be different if we had a substantial native population during westward expansion.