Blood Warning

by John Dillmann

A former New Orleans detective describes his 1980 investigation into a string of savage slayings, an invisible trail of mayhem uncovered by intuition and luck

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction

269 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published September 11, 1989

Reviews

[Fishface]

A great read about a very unusual case, about some hideous murders in the French Quarter of NOLA. John Dillman never lets me down and this is another excellent story. For those of you who hate tedious court hearings in your TC, this is a real find: it's a very compressed bench trial with a cliffhanger ending. Don't miss this one if you like true crime.

[Burt]

John Dillmann was a New Orleans police officer during the 1960s through the 1980s. He’s written four nonfiction books on his experiences. I’ve read all of them and I’ve enjoyed them. Recently, I saw a copy of Blood Warning at a used bookstore in Fairhope, Alabama, and I bought it.

After rereading Blood Warning, I thought that it was good, but not Dillmann’s best. The case concerned two 1980s stabbings. One stabbing was in a French Quarter apartment and the other was in a hotel. Blood Warning is a by-the-numbers account of the case - Dillmann runs down all of the false leads that the police pursued and the eventual resolution of the case. The court proceedings are fairly mundane and the book drags toward the finish line. Dillmann tries hard to interject drama by including his discussions with the defense attorney years after the trial.

Blood Warning isn’t bad, but Dillmann’s other three books are better.