A potentially momentous discovery. A suspicious fire. A 50-year-old missing person's case. Are they connected?

When Buddy Bolden died in a Louisiana insane asylum in 1931, a quarter century after his reign as the undisputed first "king" of jazz, he left behind no known recordings. But when quirky New Orleans antiques dealer Bruneau Abellard listens to a vintage phonograph cylinder he found in the secret compartment of a sideboard, he wonders if he has stumbled upon an important piece of musical history. In researching his discovery, Bruneau runs headlong into an arson investigation led by his childhood friend, NOPD Detective Bo Duplessis, which in turn may hold the key to a 50-year-old unsolved missing person's case.

To untangle their present-day mysteries, Bruneau and Bo must first piece together a perplexing string of puzzles from the distant past. Their parallel investigations immerse them in the rhythm-and-blues subculture of 1960s New Orleans, and transport them to the dawn of the 20th Century, when a brash young musician introduced a new sound to the city, forever changing the course of music history.

Fast-paced and vividly drawn, The Bolden Cylinder introduces a memorable cast of eccentric characters, including a malodorous collector of early R&B memorabilia, a sultry nightclub singer, a reputed mob boss, a 12-year-old tap dancer, and an inscrutable peddler of voodoo paraphernalia. Together, they serve up a savory gumbo of suspenseful intrigue set against the seductive backdrop of a city in which past and present are forever interwoven.