H. Max Hiller uses nearly twenty years of experience in the New Orleans bar, restaurant, and nightclub business to bring an extra degree of authenticity to the Cadillac Holland Mysteries Series. The books have won multiple awards and critical accolades for capturing an unflinching but loving view of New Orleans at its worst.
The series is set during the city’s tumultuous recovery from the physical and social destruction of Hurricane Katrina. In the style of Foyle’s War, each case Detective Holland is assigned is complicated by some aspect of the city’s faltering recovery, be it the understaffed police department, street gangs trying to re-establish their turf, white collar corruption, or the rapidly expanding pace of gentrification.
Detective Holland makes use of the talents acquired as a military Tier-One operator and recently disavowed intelligence agent to find the justice in what is not always a crime, and the larger crimes lurking behind the much smaller ones he is tasked with solving by the New Orleans Police Department’s over-worked Chief of Detectives. Chief Bill Avery assumed the position upon the retirement of Detective Holland’s father, and accepted Detective Holland’s permanent transfer rather than loan from the State Police. Detective Holland’s position in legal limbo makes his useful for tackling cases which are not necessarily meant to see arrests, just quiet resolutions.
The characters are rounded out by Chef Tony Venzo, a former Iraqi intelligence officer who was part of the disavowed mission which brought Detective Holland back to New Orleans, Detective Holland’s sister Tulip who does her best to the keep the two men on the right side of the law, Detective Holland’s very opinionated old-money mother, and his girlfriend Katie Reilly who is also an Assistant District Attorney who is seldom comfortable with his way of handling his cases.
