New Orleans Rapacious — O'Neil De Noux

Rapacious defined �" aggressively greedy, ravenous, plundering, taking by force, subsisting on live prey. New Orleans, 1947 It starts as a wandering daughter case when a sexy widow hires New Orleans Private Eye Lucien Caye to find her twenty-two year old daughter. The date is April 10, 1947, and Helen Croix walks into Caye's office with a picture of her missing daughter, a note her daughter left saying she plans to kill a man and then herself, along with a list of fifty-six names of her daughter's lovers. Helen and Lucien go through the list, eliminating names. The hours after that are spent on the over-sized sofa in his office as they give in to their mutual lust. After, Helen warns Lucien about her daughter, knowing he'll be tempted when he finds the alluring, strawberry-blond, temptress. Madelyn Croix will most likely seduce him. Helen describes her daughter as rapacious. Lucien has to look up the word to discover it means avaricious, greedy, ravenous �" subsisting on live prey. On the list of names, Lucien comes across a love-sick lawyer, a photographer specializing in nude pictures of women, a suspicious psychiatrist, a jealous husband. Included in the story is the worst private eye in New Orleans, a mischievous black kitten and a bevy of pretty women more than willing to bed Lucien. Shortly after the love-sick lawyer is murdered, Madelyn Croix comes to Lucien one night with that curvaceous body and Prussian-blue eyes that blinks ever so slowly, precisely, like a falcon and he realizes �" rapacious, like a raptor, a bird of prey. Madelyn hires Lucien to protect her. Someone is trying to kill her. This first novel in the Lucien Caye Series precedes ENAMORED (2012), which was nominated for the SHAMUS AWARD by the Private Eye Writers of America for BEST INDIE PRIVATE EYE NOVEL. The collection of Lucien Caye short stories, NEW ORLEANS CONFIDENTIAL (2010), features eleven stories, including two award-winning stories: “Too Wise” �" awarded The Short Mystery Fiction Society's DERRINGER AWARD for BEST NOVELETTE and “The Heart Has Reasons” �" awarded The Private Eye Writers of America's SHAMUS AWARD for Best Short Story. A third novel in the series will be out soon.