MR. NEW ORLEANS The Life of a Big Easy Underworld Legend

Throughout this engrossing audiobook, author Frenchy Brouillette emphasizes that all he's ever wanted to do is show people a good time. Narrator Louis Herthum does just that, using a stellar Cajun accent as he takes listeners on a bumpy ride through Brouillette's colorful life. That starts with the teenaged Frenchy escaping from a stifling rural Louisiana town to New Orleans, where he becomes a fixture in the city's underworld for the next six decades. Herthum also nails the accents of the audiobook's many criminal figures, including Mafia boss Carlos Marcello. Fortunately, this autobiography was written in 2010 and doesn't include the stabbing death of 79-year-old Brouillette in 2015. In that way, this personal Mardi Gras celebration, largely hilarious but at times melancholy, never ends. D.E.M. 2021 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine [Published: MARCH 2021]