In 'Cahokia Jazz,' alternate history mashes up with hardboiled noir

In 'Cahokia Jazz,' alternate history mashes up with hardboiled noir DAVE DAVIES, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. Novelist Francis Spufford's latest work of alternative historical fiction is called "Cahokia Jazz." MAUREEN CORRIGAN, BYLINE: Much of the action of Frances Spufford's latest novel, "Cahokia Jazz," plays out in the shadows, beginning with its opening scene - at first glance, a classic noir tableau. In Spufford's mashup of noir with alternative history, however, the lost city of Cahokia endured and evolved into a modern metropolis whose Indigenous, white and African American populations live in cautious harmony.