Tony Dunbar Books In Order

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Publication Order of Tubby Dubonnet Books

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Tony Dunbar is an American novelist from Atlanta best known for writing the Tubby Dubonnet series of detective crime fiction novels. He has always known he wanted to be a writer from a very young age, and would tell people that he would be a professional writer from the time he was 12. But it was not until he turned 19 that he published “Our Land Too” his first ever novel, that was a reflection of his experiences of the civil rights movement in his home town in the Mississippi Delta. He credits his early interest in writing to the reading of mystery novels by American authors such as Mickey Spillane, John D. MacDonald, Tony Hillerman, and Dashiell Hammett of the Maltese Falcon. The Nero Wolfe mystery series were also some of his favorite novels, which he would voraciously read when his peers were watching television or riding their bikes.

Tony Dunbar’s writing incorporates many categories most of which are based on his own experiences. He has written novels about working as a community organizer in Eastern Kentucky and Mississippi. Having lived in the Mississippi Delta during the Civil Rights Revolution, he has written novels about the divinity students and young preachers that spearheaded the movement. His work on the movement is also one of the most authoritative given that he was a volunteer with the Committee of Southern Churchmen and Amnesty International during this time. Working with the Voter Education Project, he has not only edited, but also written political commentary. Nonetheless, he asserts that the most fun he has ever had in his writing career are the times he spends writing mysteries. The Tubby Dubonnet series of novel has attained much critical acclaim and popularity that it has been on the shortlist for the Edgar Allen Poe Award and the Anthony Award.

Dunbar attended the Tulane Law School and practices law in New Orleans, a city that he has lived in for several years. His law practice took quite the hit during the Hurricane Katrina disaster though he never let it get him down instead using the experience to write a seventh novel in his Tubby Dubonnet series of novels. The whole experience of Hurricane Katrina had a very devastating effect on his practice, as the mandatory evacuation meant that he did not have any money coming in. He had to resort to a waiting job at a parking lot of a Mississippi chemical plants serving food to hundreds of workers brought in to operate and clean out the complex. But it was not all doom and gloom for Dunbar. Since there was so much downtime on the job, it allowed him to write the first firsthand account of Hurricane Katrina ever published in novel format. Unlike the other novels in his repertoire, the novel is a little grimmer as it describes the lawlessness and chaos pervading the deserted city in the very early days after the storm. In fact, Dunbar has asserted that writing the novel was a way of venting his anger.

According to Dunbar, the city of New Orleans, the inhabitants, the party, the menace, the music, and the food is an actual character in his Tubby Dubonnet series of novels. But the lead protagonist is Tubby Dubonnet, who bears a canny resemblance to Tony, being a New Orleans attorney. However, unlike his author, he has legal troubles after he finds himself embroiled in murder and serious criminal charges. Dubonnet is in his forties, a big man, and former jock, divorced father of three, and a man with a penchant for collecting odd clients and friends, which often leads him into ethical quandaries. When Dubonnet is first introduced, he a quick thinking, easygoing New Orleans lawyer who turns to amateur is sleuthing as a pastime, and a way to fight the evil widespread his city. He prefers to spend his time dining on crab etouffee or shrimp scampi at one of the many New Orleans restaurants where he is a regular rather than do any lawyering. But the good thing about Tubby is that once he commits to a case he will give his all to ensure that his clients get the best of service, even if he has to break the law to make sure of it.

“Crooked Man” the first Tony Dunbar novel in the Tubby Dubonnet series of novel introduces the lead character Dubonnet. He is a maverick New Orleans attorney who likes to think of himself as a simple man with a taste for good food. He also loves to engage in some off-track betting, drinking, some little fishing, and fighting evil as a pastime. Most of his clients are renegades from the poorest areas of New Orleans and include a transvestite entertainer who has weird medical conditions, the driver of a Mardi Gras float that looks like some giant fish on wheels, a doctor who gives his patients the contacts of a malpractice lawyer, and a curvaceous deadbeat blonde. In between his weird clients, Dubonnet also has to deal with his strange family of three teenage daughters and ex-wife that would not leave him alone. He is a master at juggling all the demands of work and family until he gets a new client, Darryl Alvarez, a nightclub manager nabbed for stealing Marijuana. He thinks nothing of Darryl leaving his gym bag with him, but the plot thickens when the nightclub manager turns up dead. He now has to deal with the contents of a mysterious gym bag and whoever is after it.

“City of Beads” the second novel in the Tubby Dubonnet series highlights the mystique of the mystical city of New Orleans. Dubonnet has just come out of his sabbatical to investigate the mystery of the death of Potter Aucoin a former client turned close friend. He has also been hired to research and offer recommendations on licensing requirements for the lucrative gambling casinos, whose owners have links to the mob. Despite his hands being full with his friend’s investigation, Dubbonet cannot help but get involved in his daughter’s university environmental group, which is fighting against the pollution of the Mississippi. Things get interesting when he soon learns that all three cases converge, and he may have been set up as a patsy for one of the most complicated conspiracies in New Orleans. Suddenly he is no longer bored but running for his life and trying to get out of a sticky situation.