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Tubby Dubonnet #1-6, 8-10
Tubbypalooza: Nine Hard-Boiled Tubby Dubonnet Mysteries
Alternate cover edition of ASIN B07KNH8DNM
MURDER IN THE BIG SLEAZY: Destination crime fiction with a heaping dose of Étouffée
A simple man with a refined palate, maverick New Orleans lawyer Tubby Dubonnet has a penchant for fishing, Old Fashioneds, off-track betting, and fighting evil while passing a good time. Passing a good time, of course, includes running from the mob, solving gritty crime lab murder mysteries, thwarting hurricane season bank heists, and a good deal of rubbing elbows with corrupt politicians—all this while answering to a family of beloved women that he just can’t seem to slip anything past… And with each action-packed adventure, you can trust—because this is a Tubby Dubonnet mystery—that these disparate events are intricately intertwined.
A veritable best-of, this murder mystery anthology includes nine of Tubby Dubonnet’s Anthony and Edgar-nominated hard-boiled legal thrillers.
(Editor’s Note: Why not all ten? Sorry to say the rights to TUBBY MEETS KATRINA are licensed to another publisher. But these stories need not be read in order.)
CROOKED MAN
Meet lawyer Tubby Dubonnet. His clients are all renegades from the asylum (aka Orleans Parish), including Darryl Alvarez, the manager of a local nightclub who's been caught unloading marijuana from a shrimp boat. At their first meeting, Darryl entrusts Tubby with an ordinary-looking blue gym... of money. What could possibly go wrong?
CITY OF BEADS
Tubby Dubonnet is bored. Sure, researching licensing law for the new casino will keep trout meunière on the table, but what could be more tedious? (Unless, of course, the client’s dealings are steeped in conspiracy).
TRICK QUESTION
Medical lab janitor Cletus Busters is caught red-handed in a restricted area with the frozen head of Dr. Whitney Valentine. Busters won't say much, except that he's innocent. Calling Tubby Dubonnet!
SHELTER FROM THE STORM
To out-of-town kingpin Willie LaRue, Mardi Gras seems the perfect time for a New Orleans heist. Parties, parades, chaos, alcohol – who could be concerned about a little thing like a bank job? Indeed, all might have gone well except for an out-of-season frog-flogger that threatens to flood the French Quarter.
CRIME CZAR
Tubby can't forget the last words that escaped an old friend's lips, and he can't get out of the way of a political campaign that's turning rough. Obsessed with the idea that a shadowy crime boss may be pulling the strings that have cost good people their lives, Tubby is entering into a test of courage with the most violent men in New Orleans.
LUCKY MAN
It's a city of sin. And murder is only one of them. So what if Judge Hughes shared a few special moments with Sultana Patel—why is this a matter of public interest? Until the D.A. hatches a plot to ensnare them—and their lawyer Tubby. And what a web they’re ensnared in!
NIGHT WATCHMAN
When in the 1970s a young war protester is killed in broad daylight on Canal Street, it appears that his murder will be forgotten. But a youthful Tubby chanced to see it happen, and the tragic event's haunted him throughout his life. Decades later, Tubby decides to conduct his own investigation. And stirs up a hornets’ nest.
FAT MAN BLUES
Ex-con Angelo Spooner is trying to start a legit business, but he just can’t catch a break. Just as his healing Holy Water, “Angelo’s Elixir” is about to go upscale, the sticky strands of the Big Sleazy’s tangled web of crime and corruption come running.
FLAG BOY
The set-up alone's enough to make you believe in the butterfly effect. Two acrobats burglarize a house; a sultan moves into a French Quarter mansion; a Mardi Gras Indian, in the wrong place at the wrong time, is wrongfully arrested; and our hero Tubby Dubonnet comes upon a double murder while paying a social call on the bayou.
1745 pages, ebook
Published November 17, 2018
1250 people are currently reading
472 people want to read
About the author
Tony Dunbar
43 books100 followersTony Dunbar started writing at quite a young age. When he was 12, growing up in Atlanta, he told people that he was going to be a writer, but it took him until the age of 19 to publish his first book, Our Land Too, based on his civil rights experiences in the Mississippi delta. For entertainment, Tony turned not to television but to reading mysteries such as dozens of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe stories. Among his favorites are: Dashiell Hammett, author of The Maltese Falcon, and Tony Hillerman, and John D. MacDonald, and Mickey Spillane.
He has lived in New Orleans for a long, long time, and in addition to writing mysteries and more serious fare he attended Tulane Law School and continues an active practice involving, he says, “money.” That practice took a hit in the Hurricane Katrina flooding, but the experience did produce a seventh Tubby Dubonnet mystery novel, Tubby Meets Katrina
The Tubby series so far comprises seven books: The Crime Czar, City of Beads, Crooked Man, Shelter from the Storm, Trick Question, Lucky Man, and Tubby Meets Katrina. The main character, Tony says, is the City of New Orleans itself, the food, the music, the menace, the party, the inhabitants. But Tubby Dubonnet is the actual protagonist, and he is, like the author, a New Orleans attorney. Unlike the author, however, he finds himself involved in serious crime and murder, and he also ears exceptionally well. He is “40 something,” the divorced father of three daughters, a collector of odd friends and clients, and he is constantly besieged by ethical dilemmas. But he is not fat; he is a former jock and simply big.
Tony’s writing spans quite a few categories and is as varied as his own experiences. He has written about people’s struggle for survival, growing out of his own work as a community organizer in Mississippi and Eastern Kentucky. He has written about young preachers and divinity students who were active in the Southern labor movement in the 1930s, arising from his own work with the Committee of Southern Churchmen and Amnesty International. He has written and edited political commentary, inspired by seeing politics in action with the Voter Education Project. And he has had the most fun with the mysteries, saying, “I think I can say everything I have to say about the world through the medium of Tubby Dubonnet.”
Hurricane Katrina and the floods, which caused the mandatory evacuation of New Orleans for months, blew Tony into an off-resume job serving meals in the parking lot of a Mississippi chemical plant to hundreds of hardhats imported to get the complex dried out and operating. It also gave Tony time to write Tubby Meets Katrina, which was the first published novel set in the storm. It is a little grimmer than most of the books in the series, describing as it does the chaos in the sparsely populated city immediately after the storm. “It was a useful way for me to vent my anger,” Tony says. Still, even in a deserted metropolis stripped of electric power. Tubby manages to find a good meal.
The Tubby Dubonnet series has been nominated for both the Anthony Award and the Edgar Allen Poe Award. While the last one was published in 2006, the author says he is now settling down to write again. But about what? “Birds and wild flowers,” he suggests. Or “maybe television evangelists.” Or, inevitably, about the wondrous and beautiful city of New Orleans.
He has lived in New Orleans for a long, long time, and in addition to writing mysteries and more serious fare he attended Tulane Law School and continues an active practice involving, he says, “money.” That practice took a hit in the Hurricane Katrina flooding, but the experience did produce a seventh Tubby Dubonnet mystery novel, Tubby Meets Katrina
The Tubby series so far comprises seven books: The Crime Czar, City of Beads, Crooked Man, Shelter from the Storm, Trick Question, Lucky Man, and Tubby Meets Katrina. The main character, Tony says, is the City of New Orleans itself, the food, the music, the menace, the party, the inhabitants. But Tubby Dubonnet is the actual protagonist, and he is, like the author, a New Orleans attorney. Unlike the author, however, he finds himself involved in serious crime and murder, and he also ears exceptionally well. He is “40 something,” the divorced father of three daughters, a collector of odd friends and clients, and he is constantly besieged by ethical dilemmas. But he is not fat; he is a former jock and simply big.
Tony’s writing spans quite a few categories and is as varied as his own experiences. He has written about people’s struggle for survival, growing out of his own work as a community organizer in Mississippi and Eastern Kentucky. He has written about young preachers and divinity students who were active in the Southern labor movement in the 1930s, arising from his own work with the Committee of Southern Churchmen and Amnesty International. He has written and edited political commentary, inspired by seeing politics in action with the Voter Education Project. And he has had the most fun with the mysteries, saying, “I think I can say everything I have to say about the world through the medium of Tubby Dubonnet.”
Hurricane Katrina and the floods, which caused the mandatory evacuation of New Orleans for months, blew Tony into an off-resume job serving meals in the parking lot of a Mississippi chemical plant to hundreds of hardhats imported to get the complex dried out and operating. It also gave Tony time to write Tubby Meets Katrina, which was the first published novel set in the storm. It is a little grimmer than most of the books in the series, describing as it does the chaos in the sparsely populated city immediately after the storm. “It was a useful way for me to vent my anger,” Tony says. Still, even in a deserted metropolis stripped of electric power. Tubby manages to find a good meal.
The Tubby Dubonnet series has been nominated for both the Anthony Award and the Edgar Allen Poe Award. While the last one was published in 2006, the author says he is now settling down to write again. But about what? “Birds and wild flowers,” he suggests. Or “maybe television evangelists.” Or, inevitably, about the wondrous and beautiful city of New Orleans.
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May 6, 2019🎁 FREE on Amazon today (5/6/2019)! 🎁
March 3, 2025
I read THE CROOKED MAN, #1 in the Tubby Dubonnet series, and various others in this series as I came across them over the years. I am rereading everything in order after I obtained 9 of this series (1-6 & 8-10) in this Collection. I had almost forgotten how much I adored Tubby, and love New Orleans.
Crooked Man still tickled me and brought back enticing memories of NO, LA. Looking forward to a Tubby marathon. This is a lawyer I’m inclined to adore. The tale is well defined, the lawyerize not overwhelming, and the characters are awesome. If you love mysteries and/or The Big Easy, this is a series to get your teeth into. Reviewing this after I got into #3, I upped my 2018 4* rating to *****. A series always takes a deeper look at the story. The characters become familiar and endearing, and somehow it becomes more personal - you picture yourself a part of it all.
REVIEWED on February 21, 2025, at Goodreads, AmazonSmile and BookBub. Not available for review on B&N or Kobo.
This was an easy, fast read and a hoot a minute. The first of the Tubby Dubonnet novels by Tony Dunbar, I received this Kindle copy free from Amazon. It is the first Tubby I will read but certainly not the last.
REVIEWED on February 25, 2018, at Goodreads, AmazonSmile, and BookBub.
CITY OF BEADS is #2 in the Tubby Dubonnet and TubbyPalooza series, and it is another doozie. I wandered through New Orleans several times in my misspent youth and loved everything about it. These books bring back, in glowing sound, the music! the flavor! the food! - man, I miss it all! There is nothing anywhere else like it, and it's everywhere down south, but no place is as intensely southern Cajun as NO, LA. Just wandering along with the story through those lovely old streets - the pastel houses, the trees, the flowers, the wrought iron - is a trip. Reading this series I can see and hear and smell it all again. A return is on my bucket list, but I'm moving it up top.
City of Beads has a lot of other treats for us - this is a fine tale, told very well, and the folks involved are well-defined and for the most part likable.
Lawyer Tubby Dubonnet has an ex-wife and three growing daughters to maintain as well as his own home and office and life. With the eldest girl Debbie entering college and the old house needing repairs, money will be tight for a while. And then comes a job with the new mob-controlled casino that seems straight-forward enough. They want to open some food and alcohol stalls on the decking outside around the riverside casino and need to make sure they are covered with state licensing for food and alcohol sales outside of the building. The pay is remarkable. Not to mention the hot chick who is an assistant to the manager he will work under. He has other volunteer cases - working with his oldest daughter Debbie's environmental group about the water pollution in the river, some originating at the city dock, and trying to settle the estate of an old friend, Potter Aucoin, who was an importer and distributor of vegetable oil in a leased building and property, also on the city dock. The coroner is sure Potter was killed by a blow to his head - before he was dropped into the barge full of peanut oil. He had no oil in his lungs. Not something you want to think about, but it might help his widow handle the death in a better way. All pretty innocent work. What can go wrong?
A great deal. Other people begin to die in strange and ominous ways. Before long, Tubby is running for his life and very afraid for his daughter Debbie as well. But even a man fearing his extinction has to eat...
REVIEWED on February 22, 2025, at Goodreads, AmazonSmile, and BookBub.
TRICK QUESTION is #3 in TubbyPalooza and the Tubby Dubonnet Mystery series. I'm only on the third of this series of 10 and I've already gained 5 pounds. I can smell the muffaletta, and see Antoine's and Tujague's in my mind's eye. Unfortunately, my small-town high desert community doesn't even have a Cajun shop, or a good Italian restaurant, but one makes do with what is available. We are 100 miles north of Mexico, so we do have six taco establishments. They can't compare to the street vendor offerings in the Garden District of the Big Easy.
If you have stronger willpower than I, you will love this series. Don't get me wrong, I'm loving it myself, despite new love handles. Tubby is a lawyer with a great deal of self-control and common sense except when food or booze is at issue, or his daughters, and his cases border on the 'that-couldn't-happen', but it does, and he handles it with deeply felt concern and class. In Trick Question, he winds up with another major pro-bono case - a night janitor in a medical research laboratory accused of the first-degree dastardly murder of one of the research doctors. Just because he was caught cradling Doc Valentine's unattached frozen head in his arms by the night watchman.
But as he says himself on page 85, Tubby was 'going to enjoy this case in spite of himself'. Most of his other current legal commitments are also pro bono with family members and poor friends, as usual. This story has several trick questions, but you will know the headliner question when you see it.
Though only in book three of ten, we already understand that he can handle any case. Very well, indeed. Perhaps even better, on a full stomach.
REVIEWED ON FEBRUARY 24,2025, at Goodreads, AmazonSmile, and BookBub. Not available at B&N or Kobo.
SHELTER FROM THE STORM is #4 in the Tubby Dubonnet series and TubbyPalooza. New Orleans, LA, like Houston, TX, is a levee-encased city just at or below sea level. Build your earthen levees up to 8 or 10 feet high along the river, the port, and the gulf, wait for the marsh and swamps to dry out, and build your city. Viola! But cities perched near the sea below sea level lead a precarious existence and shudder at the very thought of extended rain... I loved this quote from The Chicago Tribune... it says it all! “By showing the damage that several days of hard rain could cause to the city’s fragile ecosystem, Dunbar makes the reader really care about its fate. He does the same for Tubby, a lazy, corner-cutting, slightly shabby, occasionally reckless but totally decent man.”
The bad guys in Shelter are especially bad, the good ones we already know and sometimes love, and the storm over the lovely city of New Orleans, The Big Easy, is something else. You gotta love this one, folks.
REVIEWED on February 25, 2025, at Goodreads, AmazonSmile, and BookBub. Not available at B&N, or Kobo.
CRIME CZAR #5 of Tubby Dubonnet series - When political corruption is tied to the murder of an old friend and sits very close to home, it can become an obsession. Or maybe Tubby is finally feeling driven to end corruption in high places. It can easily become extremely dangerous - to Tubby, his family, and friends. Few strangers in this one, again short and sweet and hard to put down.
REVIEWED on February 25, 2025, at Goodreads, AmazonSmile, and BookBub. Not available at B&N or Kobo.
LUCKY MAN #6 of the Tubby Dubonnet Mystery Series, is so fast paced you will have crossed eyes before the surprise ending, but it's all very clear in retrospect. Tubby is several weeks sober and sees clearly, now. We have all the usual suspects, that hard-nosed DA with a grudge, and many surprises, both in the Bubonnet legal practice, the family, and the legal and police departments of NO, LA. Just hang in there - it's a fast, rollicking read and you will see the light. Tubby is a very lucky man, after all.
REVIEWED on February 26, 2025, at Goodreads, AmazonSmile, and BookBub. Not available at B&N or Kobo.
Book #7 Tubby Meets Katrina, was published by a different publisher, NewSouth Books in 2005, AND IS NOT IN TUBBYPALOOZA. The Kindle on it is about $25. I found no epub deals on it anywhere. I did find a used hardback copy of #7 I could afford so will have a Tubby break until it comes in. Retirement is not all it's cracked up to be, not much money, but there is lots of time to READ! I'm too old to enjoy heavy hard-backed books but I had to have this one. It's about warm enough to lie in the New Mexico sun and read it, with lemonade and a lazy cat for company.
AND my review for #7 - TUBBY MEETS KATRINA, #7 in the Tubby Bubonnet series, was published after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 took out huge swaths of the southern US, and Tony Dunbar, as a New Orleans resident, was right in the middle of it all - the storm, the flooding when the city's earthern levees were breached, the mandatory city-wide evacuations of 300,000 folks, the months when residents were not allowed to return to NO, LA to assess and try to recover their property and lives - and he tells it like it was. So many residents had been bussed off to Houston, Atlanta, Kansas City, Pennsylvania when the levees broke, flooding the various city-wide facilities those families had retreated to for safety during the storm. Many of them had only the clothes on their backs, no personal transportation at their final retreat, no knowledge of the community that took them in, little if any money, and no idea how their homes, jobs, and neighborhood had faired through it all. They just knew they couldn't go home. Months later, when the city was re-opened, the traffic was so heavy returning families averaged about 20 miles an hour on every road coming into Louisiana, whether traveling by private car or bus. There were still no trains or airport services available to the Crescent City. There were still no grocery stores, pharmacies, daycare centers. Even Walmart had been ransacked and stripped bare by looters. Unhappily, some of those looters were the very police hired to protect the community. And there were few jobs to be had unless you were healthy and strong enough to do construction work and tear out soaked, mildewed wallboard and carpets. They had a special dumping ground just for the ruined refrigerators. Unless we lived through this or something just as devastating, most of us had no clue it could get this bad. I was in Hurricane Camille in Pensacola in 1969, knocked my pear tree into my kitchen and took out the neighborhood pier, which flapped like a sheet in the wind before it broke up. But I still had a community, a job, friends and neighbors to help pick up the pieces and move on.
Every time I came up for air while reading this story, I realized how lucky I was not to have experienced anything even approaching this devastation. It has renewed my faith in humanity - I had forgotten this heroic brand of community spirit as I got old, isolated and cynical. And as with everything else in life, what goes around, comes around. Community is a two-way street, as my mother used to say. Thank you, Tony Dunbar, for giving me this wake-up call. I needed it.
NIGHT WATCHMAN, #8 Tubby Dubonnet Mystery Series and TubbyPalooza, takes us all the way back to Tubby's teens to a protest against The VietNam War on the streets of New Orleans in the 1970s, where he was witness to the shooting of another boy known only to him as Parker, who will die in his arms. Another case teases back memories of the murder of Parker in the Big Easy, and Tubby decides to put his best people, Cherrylynn and Flowers, on their own investigation of Parker's murder. That investigation went nowhere with the police back in the day, still listed as unsolved and Parker still nameless. The Dubonnet crew's investigation will stir the pot in surprisingly wide circles in the city. Tubby and his friends are now all finding themselves targets. Even his new friends are not safe. But if they are successful, Parker would have a whole name, his family would have closure, and Tubby wouldn't feel so guilty. Perhaps... And we are left set-up quite well for #9, Fat Man Blues. Very good tale, told very well.
REVIEWED on March 2, 2025, at Goodreads, Amazon, and BookBub. Not available at Kobo or B&N.
FAT MAN BLUES #9 in the Tubby Dubonnet Series and TubbyPalooza 1-6 & 8-10, first published August 11, 2016. Tubby shares with us his journey across current great places to eat when dining out in the Big Easy. Mostly new eateries to me as my NO times were in the 1970s, but now subtitled on my Crescent City Return bucket list. He has continuing recurring problems with the Cuban Exiles of the 1970s from Night Watchman. We have more of his new gal Peggy and spend lots of time with Cherrylynn and Flowers - altogether a great addition to the Dubonnet trip.
REVIEWED on March 3, 2025, at Goodreads, AmazonSmile, and BookBub. Not available at Kobo or B&N.
FLAG BOY #10 Tubby Dubonnet series is a continuation of the mess involving the Cuban expats and their children and grandchildren in their battles against socialism both in the US and especially in the Big Easy. This is told very well, has wide-ranging repercussions, and we find out who some of the movers and shakers are in that organization. If you haven't read the series, this novel would stand alone, but as usual in a series, the tale is richer and fuller when read as a group. We will also spend time with our regulars and find some closure in this one. You don't want to miss it, folks. And as usual, we will eat our way across the Crescent City and Southern Louisiana...
REVIEWED on March 3, 2025 at Goodreads, AmazonSmile, and BookBub. Not available at B&N or Kobo.
Crooked Man still tickled me and brought back enticing memories of NO, LA. Looking forward to a Tubby marathon. This is a lawyer I’m inclined to adore. The tale is well defined, the lawyerize not overwhelming, and the characters are awesome. If you love mysteries and/or The Big Easy, this is a series to get your teeth into. Reviewing this after I got into #3, I upped my 2018 4* rating to *****. A series always takes a deeper look at the story. The characters become familiar and endearing, and somehow it becomes more personal - you picture yourself a part of it all.
REVIEWED on February 21, 2025, at Goodreads, AmazonSmile and BookBub. Not available for review on B&N or Kobo.
This was an easy, fast read and a hoot a minute. The first of the Tubby Dubonnet novels by Tony Dunbar, I received this Kindle copy free from Amazon. It is the first Tubby I will read but certainly not the last.
REVIEWED on February 25, 2018, at Goodreads, AmazonSmile, and BookBub.
CITY OF BEADS is #2 in the Tubby Dubonnet and TubbyPalooza series, and it is another doozie. I wandered through New Orleans several times in my misspent youth and loved everything about it. These books bring back, in glowing sound, the music! the flavor! the food! - man, I miss it all! There is nothing anywhere else like it, and it's everywhere down south, but no place is as intensely southern Cajun as NO, LA. Just wandering along with the story through those lovely old streets - the pastel houses, the trees, the flowers, the wrought iron - is a trip. Reading this series I can see and hear and smell it all again. A return is on my bucket list, but I'm moving it up top.
City of Beads has a lot of other treats for us - this is a fine tale, told very well, and the folks involved are well-defined and for the most part likable.
Lawyer Tubby Dubonnet has an ex-wife and three growing daughters to maintain as well as his own home and office and life. With the eldest girl Debbie entering college and the old house needing repairs, money will be tight for a while. And then comes a job with the new mob-controlled casino that seems straight-forward enough. They want to open some food and alcohol stalls on the decking outside around the riverside casino and need to make sure they are covered with state licensing for food and alcohol sales outside of the building. The pay is remarkable. Not to mention the hot chick who is an assistant to the manager he will work under. He has other volunteer cases - working with his oldest daughter Debbie's environmental group about the water pollution in the river, some originating at the city dock, and trying to settle the estate of an old friend, Potter Aucoin, who was an importer and distributor of vegetable oil in a leased building and property, also on the city dock. The coroner is sure Potter was killed by a blow to his head - before he was dropped into the barge full of peanut oil. He had no oil in his lungs. Not something you want to think about, but it might help his widow handle the death in a better way. All pretty innocent work. What can go wrong?
A great deal. Other people begin to die in strange and ominous ways. Before long, Tubby is running for his life and very afraid for his daughter Debbie as well. But even a man fearing his extinction has to eat...
REVIEWED on February 22, 2025, at Goodreads, AmazonSmile, and BookBub.
TRICK QUESTION is #3 in TubbyPalooza and the Tubby Dubonnet Mystery series. I'm only on the third of this series of 10 and I've already gained 5 pounds. I can smell the muffaletta, and see Antoine's and Tujague's in my mind's eye. Unfortunately, my small-town high desert community doesn't even have a Cajun shop, or a good Italian restaurant, but one makes do with what is available. We are 100 miles north of Mexico, so we do have six taco establishments. They can't compare to the street vendor offerings in the Garden District of the Big Easy.
If you have stronger willpower than I, you will love this series. Don't get me wrong, I'm loving it myself, despite new love handles. Tubby is a lawyer with a great deal of self-control and common sense except when food or booze is at issue, or his daughters, and his cases border on the 'that-couldn't-happen', but it does, and he handles it with deeply felt concern and class. In Trick Question, he winds up with another major pro-bono case - a night janitor in a medical research laboratory accused of the first-degree dastardly murder of one of the research doctors. Just because he was caught cradling Doc Valentine's unattached frozen head in his arms by the night watchman.
But as he says himself on page 85, Tubby was 'going to enjoy this case in spite of himself'. Most of his other current legal commitments are also pro bono with family members and poor friends, as usual. This story has several trick questions, but you will know the headliner question when you see it.
Though only in book three of ten, we already understand that he can handle any case. Very well, indeed. Perhaps even better, on a full stomach.
REVIEWED ON FEBRUARY 24,2025, at Goodreads, AmazonSmile, and BookBub. Not available at B&N or Kobo.
SHELTER FROM THE STORM is #4 in the Tubby Dubonnet series and TubbyPalooza. New Orleans, LA, like Houston, TX, is a levee-encased city just at or below sea level. Build your earthen levees up to 8 or 10 feet high along the river, the port, and the gulf, wait for the marsh and swamps to dry out, and build your city. Viola! But cities perched near the sea below sea level lead a precarious existence and shudder at the very thought of extended rain... I loved this quote from The Chicago Tribune... it says it all! “By showing the damage that several days of hard rain could cause to the city’s fragile ecosystem, Dunbar makes the reader really care about its fate. He does the same for Tubby, a lazy, corner-cutting, slightly shabby, occasionally reckless but totally decent man.”
The bad guys in Shelter are especially bad, the good ones we already know and sometimes love, and the storm over the lovely city of New Orleans, The Big Easy, is something else. You gotta love this one, folks.
REVIEWED on February 25, 2025, at Goodreads, AmazonSmile, and BookBub. Not available at B&N, or Kobo.
CRIME CZAR #5 of Tubby Dubonnet series - When political corruption is tied to the murder of an old friend and sits very close to home, it can become an obsession. Or maybe Tubby is finally feeling driven to end corruption in high places. It can easily become extremely dangerous - to Tubby, his family, and friends. Few strangers in this one, again short and sweet and hard to put down.
REVIEWED on February 25, 2025, at Goodreads, AmazonSmile, and BookBub. Not available at B&N or Kobo.
LUCKY MAN #6 of the Tubby Dubonnet Mystery Series, is so fast paced you will have crossed eyes before the surprise ending, but it's all very clear in retrospect. Tubby is several weeks sober and sees clearly, now. We have all the usual suspects, that hard-nosed DA with a grudge, and many surprises, both in the Bubonnet legal practice, the family, and the legal and police departments of NO, LA. Just hang in there - it's a fast, rollicking read and you will see the light. Tubby is a very lucky man, after all.
REVIEWED on February 26, 2025, at Goodreads, AmazonSmile, and BookBub. Not available at B&N or Kobo.
Book #7 Tubby Meets Katrina, was published by a different publisher, NewSouth Books in 2005, AND IS NOT IN TUBBYPALOOZA. The Kindle on it is about $25. I found no epub deals on it anywhere. I did find a used hardback copy of #7 I could afford so will have a Tubby break until it comes in. Retirement is not all it's cracked up to be, not much money, but there is lots of time to READ! I'm too old to enjoy heavy hard-backed books but I had to have this one. It's about warm enough to lie in the New Mexico sun and read it, with lemonade and a lazy cat for company.
AND my review for #7 - TUBBY MEETS KATRINA, #7 in the Tubby Bubonnet series, was published after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 took out huge swaths of the southern US, and Tony Dunbar, as a New Orleans resident, was right in the middle of it all - the storm, the flooding when the city's earthern levees were breached, the mandatory city-wide evacuations of 300,000 folks, the months when residents were not allowed to return to NO, LA to assess and try to recover their property and lives - and he tells it like it was. So many residents had been bussed off to Houston, Atlanta, Kansas City, Pennsylvania when the levees broke, flooding the various city-wide facilities those families had retreated to for safety during the storm. Many of them had only the clothes on their backs, no personal transportation at their final retreat, no knowledge of the community that took them in, little if any money, and no idea how their homes, jobs, and neighborhood had faired through it all. They just knew they couldn't go home. Months later, when the city was re-opened, the traffic was so heavy returning families averaged about 20 miles an hour on every road coming into Louisiana, whether traveling by private car or bus. There were still no trains or airport services available to the Crescent City. There were still no grocery stores, pharmacies, daycare centers. Even Walmart had been ransacked and stripped bare by looters. Unhappily, some of those looters were the very police hired to protect the community. And there were few jobs to be had unless you were healthy and strong enough to do construction work and tear out soaked, mildewed wallboard and carpets. They had a special dumping ground just for the ruined refrigerators. Unless we lived through this or something just as devastating, most of us had no clue it could get this bad. I was in Hurricane Camille in Pensacola in 1969, knocked my pear tree into my kitchen and took out the neighborhood pier, which flapped like a sheet in the wind before it broke up. But I still had a community, a job, friends and neighbors to help pick up the pieces and move on.
Every time I came up for air while reading this story, I realized how lucky I was not to have experienced anything even approaching this devastation. It has renewed my faith in humanity - I had forgotten this heroic brand of community spirit as I got old, isolated and cynical. And as with everything else in life, what goes around, comes around. Community is a two-way street, as my mother used to say. Thank you, Tony Dunbar, for giving me this wake-up call. I needed it.
NIGHT WATCHMAN, #8 Tubby Dubonnet Mystery Series and TubbyPalooza, takes us all the way back to Tubby's teens to a protest against The VietNam War on the streets of New Orleans in the 1970s, where he was witness to the shooting of another boy known only to him as Parker, who will die in his arms. Another case teases back memories of the murder of Parker in the Big Easy, and Tubby decides to put his best people, Cherrylynn and Flowers, on their own investigation of Parker's murder. That investigation went nowhere with the police back in the day, still listed as unsolved and Parker still nameless. The Dubonnet crew's investigation will stir the pot in surprisingly wide circles in the city. Tubby and his friends are now all finding themselves targets. Even his new friends are not safe. But if they are successful, Parker would have a whole name, his family would have closure, and Tubby wouldn't feel so guilty. Perhaps... And we are left set-up quite well for #9, Fat Man Blues. Very good tale, told very well.
REVIEWED on March 2, 2025, at Goodreads, Amazon, and BookBub. Not available at Kobo or B&N.
FAT MAN BLUES #9 in the Tubby Dubonnet Series and TubbyPalooza 1-6 & 8-10, first published August 11, 2016. Tubby shares with us his journey across current great places to eat when dining out in the Big Easy. Mostly new eateries to me as my NO times were in the 1970s, but now subtitled on my Crescent City Return bucket list. He has continuing recurring problems with the Cuban Exiles of the 1970s from Night Watchman. We have more of his new gal Peggy and spend lots of time with Cherrylynn and Flowers - altogether a great addition to the Dubonnet trip.
REVIEWED on March 3, 2025, at Goodreads, AmazonSmile, and BookBub. Not available at Kobo or B&N.
FLAG BOY #10 Tubby Dubonnet series is a continuation of the mess involving the Cuban expats and their children and grandchildren in their battles against socialism both in the US and especially in the Big Easy. This is told very well, has wide-ranging repercussions, and we find out who some of the movers and shakers are in that organization. If you haven't read the series, this novel would stand alone, but as usual in a series, the tale is richer and fuller when read as a group. We will also spend time with our regulars and find some closure in this one. You don't want to miss it, folks. And as usual, we will eat our way across the Crescent City and Southern Louisiana...
REVIEWED on March 3, 2025 at Goodreads, AmazonSmile, and BookBub. Not available at B&N or Kobo.
June 23, 2019
THE CROOKED MAN
The plot flows as though Tubby is talking aloud, visiting sites and people he knows. When asked to hold on to a gym bag, seems like a simple request, but then it soon became a problem. This captures the essence of New Orleans. The character are quite unique in the friends he has, As for Tubby he is ordinary man with a taste for fancy things. His style of writing seems easy so one just sits back and enjoy the stories
THE CITY OF BEADS
Taking time to drive down into Florida with Raisin nothing on the agenda, relaxing at the beach, and good food. His friend Potter was missing, and now home, a message from his wife he had been found. Tubby had looked up to Potter he seemed older and wiser and made a success out of the work he did shipping oil out of the country. He had always been a hustler, and able to pull the deals off, Tubby would miss him. Giving us a detail description of this man was good, as was the setting. Each story bring us quirky people that are friends with Tubby. In that we know more. about Tubby then just as a lawyer.
TRICK QUESTION
Tubby now owns Mike’s Bar, takes on a client at the last minute. Add to his stories of unusual people the client is a voodoo priest. The body was in a freezer, when it fell out, the head snap off. Another unusual case, and Tubby always seems laid back, though he does find evident. Again it is rich in the sounds, and foods of New Orleans.
A good flowing plot, stories filled with quirky people and the sounds and foods of New Orleans
The plot flows as though Tubby is talking aloud, visiting sites and people he knows. When asked to hold on to a gym bag, seems like a simple request, but then it soon became a problem. This captures the essence of New Orleans. The character are quite unique in the friends he has, As for Tubby he is ordinary man with a taste for fancy things. His style of writing seems easy so one just sits back and enjoy the stories
THE CITY OF BEADS
Taking time to drive down into Florida with Raisin nothing on the agenda, relaxing at the beach, and good food. His friend Potter was missing, and now home, a message from his wife he had been found. Tubby had looked up to Potter he seemed older and wiser and made a success out of the work he did shipping oil out of the country. He had always been a hustler, and able to pull the deals off, Tubby would miss him. Giving us a detail description of this man was good, as was the setting. Each story bring us quirky people that are friends with Tubby. In that we know more. about Tubby then just as a lawyer.
TRICK QUESTION
Tubby now owns Mike’s Bar, takes on a client at the last minute. Add to his stories of unusual people the client is a voodoo priest. The body was in a freezer, when it fell out, the head snap off. Another unusual case, and Tubby always seems laid back, though he does find evident. Again it is rich in the sounds, and foods of New Orleans.
A good flowing plot, stories filled with quirky people and the sounds and foods of New Orleans
August 23, 2020
Take a walk with Tubby Dubonnet Lawyer from New Orleans. And you will either find a best friend or be horrified.
Tubby Dubonnet a New Orleans Lawyer. A great friend, and great boss, a great Father, and a real bad enemy. But sometimes he has trouble telling his friends from the enemy. Now he knows that Cherrylynn his secretary and asstant, and Raisin his best friend sinse high school, and Flowers his PI and friend for years all have his back. And his girls we watch them grow up up. They are part of our family also. And we watch the ladies come through and stay friends. And the clients are happy and keep coming back. But he can’t seem to quit making enemies! Bad ones! Long lasting ones that hang around and keep putting their two bits in when he thinks they have left. It makes life more than disturbing it is hazardous It causes his friends to be killed and that makes him mad and he does something about it. And he has some funny morals. Not perfect you understand he makes more mistakes than most but he keeps trying. All together a friend I would like to have at my side in times of need. And for a good time. Good fun read.
Tubby Dubonnet a New Orleans Lawyer. A great friend, and great boss, a great Father, and a real bad enemy. But sometimes he has trouble telling his friends from the enemy. Now he knows that Cherrylynn his secretary and asstant, and Raisin his best friend sinse high school, and Flowers his PI and friend for years all have his back. And his girls we watch them grow up up. They are part of our family also. And we watch the ladies come through and stay friends. And the clients are happy and keep coming back. But he can’t seem to quit making enemies! Bad ones! Long lasting ones that hang around and keep putting their two bits in when he thinks they have left. It makes life more than disturbing it is hazardous It causes his friends to be killed and that makes him mad and he does something about it. And he has some funny morals. Not perfect you understand he makes more mistakes than most but he keeps trying. All together a friend I would like to have at my side in times of need. And for a good time. Good fun read.
May 5, 2020
An enormously entertaining series. Each book is good by itself but the series weaves through all the characters and some are lost, some rediscovered, some you are glad to see again. The series takes place over more than a decade and uses events, institutions, and traditions that make New Orleans the place it is. Tubby Dubonnet is the hero; a divorced lawyer, father of three girls, lover of good liquor and fine food, and a practising (sometimes) lawyer at home in New Orleans. His law practice, friends, lovers, and enemies take him all over the city and into many tight situations. Tony Dunbar has brought so much of New Orleans mythology into the stories as well as the mundane tasks of daily life. I love reading these stories and Tubbypalooza has all but one of them. Enjoy.
March 12, 2019
I enjoyed the 9 stories very much. It was interesting that in each story, his client got in trouble and he and his friends were able to solve the crime and get them released. There was a continuity of all of the stories since each new book referred to something that happened in the previous one.
I thought originally that since Tubby was a lawyer that there would be a lot of court trials. This was not the case. Each of the stories wound up being mysteries that Tubby solved.
I enjoyed the characters a great deal and all of the endings in each story were surprising.
I highly recommend this box set or any of the stories individually and feel any body else would too.
I thought originally that since Tubby was a lawyer that there would be a lot of court trials. This was not the case. Each of the stories wound up being mysteries that Tubby solved.
I enjoyed the characters a great deal and all of the endings in each story were surprising.
I highly recommend this box set or any of the stories individually and feel any body else would too.
March 16, 2021
These are novels that can be read as a standalone, but I can share with you that you will really enjoy each one in the consecutive series. The author has great descriptions of New Orleans that if you haven’t visited there then you will definitely want to and if you have been there then you will recall the joy of having visited! The stories are exciting and draw you in from the get go. Each have new and old characters alike and ‘Tubby’ can find himself and his cloying a bit of a fix at times, but his brilliant mind sheds eventual truths. Enjoy a find these pearls!
August 6, 2021
Even tho not “great literature”, I very much enjoyed these and read them straight thru! Only problem was I kept wanting to go to New Orleans to eat! The meals he described…oooo! The ethical situations and general life dilemmas combined with some murders that weren’t described in too too gory a way made for a good read. The characters were interesting tho the men’s were developed much more than the women’s. It isn’t frolicking funny like The Stephanie Plum books but has enough unusual events to keep it going.
February 7, 2023
Really involving stories about Tubby Dubonnet and his effect on the justice system in and around New Orleans as he champions the innocent and investigates and punishes the guilty to protect his loved ones. Good how the stories follow a theme throughout and proceed towards Tubby's ultimate goal despite the efforts of many to stop him in his quest. All he really wants is to eat, gamble on track and drink and follow his love life while making enough to survive and help his daughters along the way. Two thumbs up for this series, I'd give it three if I had them.
August 3, 2021
Great series!
If you're looking for mystery, drama, and lots of humor mixed in, you'll love this series. I was equally entertained with each and every book. The main character is a well-meaning attorney with integrity & high intelligence...who somehow finds himself, along with family & friends...in very dangerous situations.
If you're looking for mystery, drama, and lots of humor mixed in, you'll love this series. I was equally entertained with each and every book. The main character is a well-meaning attorney with integrity & high intelligence...who somehow finds himself, along with family & friends...in very dangerous situations.
August 6, 2021
Absolutely loved the early books. Wry humor, well written, sparse but meaningful character descriptions. Fun.
Absolutely hated the last three in this collection. Too many characters and meandering themes, sex, typical pc bullshit. Too wordy. Not the same feeling - different author?
And one of the books you can’t even read since it is “owned” by a different publisher.
Absolutely hated the last three in this collection. Too many characters and meandering themes, sex, typical pc bullshit. Too wordy. Not the same feeling - different author?
And one of the books you can’t even read since it is “owned” by a different publisher.
August 13, 2021
Not just another lawyer
Some of the books are better than others but all of them are a nice way to pass the time. The main character is interesting and ,although he keeps getting into interesting situations, is very much a normal guy who reminds me of lots of real world people. Enjoy the books and ignore the minor plot holes they aren’t relevant to the plot.
Some of the books are better than others but all of them are a nice way to pass the time. The main character is interesting and ,although he keeps getting into interesting situations, is very much a normal guy who reminds me of lots of real world people. Enjoy the books and ignore the minor plot holes they aren’t relevant to the plot.
September 11, 2021
oh NO, they’re over 🙀
I enjoyed these books so much, I’m very sorry to see them end, read one after the other. Lots of characters to keep straight, but they were each so unique & quirky ! And the descriptions of the various bars & restaurants, & the yummy food, like Tubby, I’ll never turn down a good oyster !
I enjoyed these books so much, I’m very sorry to see them end, read one after the other. Lots of characters to keep straight, but they were each so unique & quirky ! And the descriptions of the various bars & restaurants, & the yummy food, like Tubby, I’ll never turn down a good oyster !
September 12, 2021
Tubby for the win!
Mr.Dunbar you really do spin a good tale . I enjoy very much your hero Tubby Dubonnet.
I have thoroughly enjoy all of your Tubby stories and the characters that support your hero.
The ladies are especially interesting and Tubby is to be admired in his restraint.
Well done sir!!
Mr.Dunbar you really do spin a good tale . I enjoy very much your hero Tubby Dubonnet.
I have thoroughly enjoy all of your Tubby stories and the characters that support your hero.
The ladies are especially interesting and Tubby is to be admired in his restraint.
Well done sir!!
October 15, 2021
Every book entertaining
Cannot go wrong with this collection. Tubby Dubonnett continues to entertain with a surround cast if colorful and sometimes dangerous characters. At times the author leaves the reader slightly disappointed by providing only a partial ending like the old serials of the 40s and 50s.
Cannot go wrong with this collection. Tubby Dubonnett continues to entertain with a surround cast if colorful and sometimes dangerous characters. At times the author leaves the reader slightly disappointed by providing only a partial ending like the old serials of the 40s and 50s.
March 28, 2022
Disliked the ending
I really didn't care for the ending. I feel that Tubby needed to find Rue. I feel that the man that was killed at that campground was , again, an innocent person and Rue killed him and stole his clothes and the clothes that identified Rue were burnt up with the body of the young man that Rue killed.
I really didn't care for the ending. I feel that Tubby needed to find Rue. I feel that the man that was killed at that campground was , again, an innocent person and Rue killed him and stole his clothes and the clothes that identified Rue were burnt up with the body of the young man that Rue killed.
May 17, 2019
Great stories
Each story stands alone but has a connection to the other ones. Good strong characters who are normal people living the life. Ficticious or not it gives you an insight into NEW ORLEANS. THE PARADES.. THE TRADITIONS AND THE FOOD!
Each story stands alone but has a connection to the other ones. Good strong characters who are normal people living the life. Ficticious or not it gives you an insight into NEW ORLEANS. THE PARADES.. THE TRADITIONS AND THE FOOD!
July 27, 2019
All nine books different until the very end.
Each book has a different style to it. All the stories have a few main and supporting characters in them, but the last book combined them all together for a surprising end.
Each book has a different style to it. All the stories have a few main and supporting characters in them, but the last book combined them all together for a surprising end.
August 31, 2019
Grey
Too many shades of grey in New Orleans, nobody is totally black or white. But the food is almost always delicious even if the surroundings aren't.
My favorite line is how Tubby is nearly and innocent surrounded by bad occurrences. Makes for good story telling.
Too many shades of grey in New Orleans, nobody is totally black or white. But the food is almost always delicious even if the surroundings aren't.
My favorite line is how Tubby is nearly and innocent surrounded by bad occurrences. Makes for good story telling.
February 16, 2019
I love Nawlins and I really enjoyed this whole series. So much so that I bought the Katrina book separate and read them in order. Hope he writes more !!!
May 10, 2019
Loved all the stories except that it would not load "Tubby Meets Katrina", only reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5.
May 31, 2019
Totally worth every penny I paid for it. Quick paced read that entertains and doesn't dwell too much on feelings.
June 3, 2019
More!
Makes you want to pack some essentials and grab a flight to the Big Easy, and have Tony Dunbar as your guide
Makes you want to pack some essentials and grab a flight to the Big Easy, and have Tony Dunbar as your guide
June 16, 2019
Quirky
The characters grow on the reader. They keep appearing in following books and is refreshing to find out more about them. Long, but interesting series .
The characters grow on the reader. They keep appearing in following books and is refreshing to find out more about them. Long, but interesting series .
January 21, 2020
One of my favourite authors and characters. Great lot of top yarns.
April 4, 2020
Wow
This was my first foray into the mind of Tubby Dubonnet and it was wonderful. It put me in mind of Robert B Parker !
This was my first foray into the mind of Tubby Dubonnet and it was wonderful. It put me in mind of Robert B Parker !
October 22, 2020
Excellent series
I read these books back to back and loved each one of them. Tubby is a tortured soul and wants to set things right.
I read these books back to back and loved each one of them. Tubby is a tortured soul and wants to set things right.
Read
March 30, 2021Keeps on coming.
The author has a great store of catastrophe. This allows the novels to keep moving and hot bog down. I read the lot of them. Well worth the time.
The author has a great store of catastrophe. This allows the novels to keep moving and hot bog down. I read the lot of them. Well worth the time.
October 30, 2021
Fun read
Entertaining, light, great character development and a nice portrait of new Orleans. Not literature but well written. I just plain enjoyed it.
Entertaining, light, great character development and a nice portrait of new Orleans. Not literature but well written. I just plain enjoyed it.
November 10, 2021
Was okay
I found all the books interesting and entertaining. Found the characters and their storylines were riveting and intriguing. The humor was just delightful.
I found all the books interesting and entertaining. Found the characters and their storylines were riveting and intriguing. The humor was just delightful.
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