6 Must-Read Books Set in New Orleans

New Orleans has an impressive literary tradition, spawning countless top-notch writers and serving as the colorful setting for classic novels like The Moviegoer by Walker Percy and A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, as well as Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire. Not to mention the many novels of vampire conjurer Anne Rice. Most of the books below are lesser known, but each, whether fiction or fact, offers a unique slice of New Orleans, making your visit to The Big Easy a much richer experience.

The Missing by Tim Gautreaux
$9.99 Paperback, $5.99 e-book

A moody novel set in southern Louisiana that will appeal to lovers of literary fiction, with a good ol ' mystery thrown in to boot. It's the 1920s, and our troubled hero is Sam Simoneaux, nicknamed "Lucky," who's working in New Orleans as a department store security guard when a little girl goes missing on his shift. He sets off on a wild search that involves traveling the Mississippi on a riverboat, and a reckoning with his own family's long-ago tragedy.

Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table by Sara Roahen
$11.67 Paperback, $9.57 e-book

This book is required reading for those who experience a new place most profoundly through their taste buds. Roahen, a Wisconsin native and chef, offers her funny, personal, weight-loss-defying story of culinary discovery, including where to find the quirky hole-in-the-wall that offers bliss-inducing smothered mustard greens (smothered in fat, that is), why it's a New Orleans tradition to eat red beans and rice on Mondays, and the nuances to ordering the city's iconic po'boy.

City of Refuge by Tom Piazza
$9.98 Paperback, $7.99 e-book

A fictional tale of two families, one black and living in the Lower Ninth Ward, the other white transplants from Michigan. Characters wrestle with rebuilding their lives after Hurricane Katrina and the cost of staying in this magnetic but vulnerable city — a place where, as the father from Michigan puts it during Mardi Gras, "you're supposed to dance while you have the chance." The story feels authentic, which doesn't surprise, since Piazza is a true authority on New Orleans, and a rather smitten one: A few months after the storm, he published the nonfiction Why New Orleans Matters, an emotional ode to his hometown.