New Orleans is perhaps the most raffish and rococo of American cities. Founded in 1718, it learned its lusty, brawling ways under the flags of France and Spain before Thomas Jefferson made it part of the U.S. forever. Woven into the gaudy fabric of its history are the Gulf Coast pirate brothers Jean and Pierre Lafitte, Mississippi River bandits, brocade-vested card sharps, oleaginous carpetbaggers and the rich, rum-and-flesh pleasures of the French Quarter. The Italian migration brought the Mafia; after the La Stella raid of 1966 in Queens County, N.Y., police revealed...
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