Bad Moon Rising — L.F. Crawford

Beverly Hills Detective Art Murry has a hot thing going with Medical Examiner Mary Éclair that he hopes will lead to happily ever after. But following a brutal attack by a serial killer, where her hands are crippled and her confidence destroyed, Éclair takes a leave of absence-not only from the job, but Murry as well. In an effort to help Murry, who's depressed and hitting the bottle, Billy Kidman, his partner, drags him on a Caribbean cruise. On board, Murry's drinking escalates and he's convinced he's hallucinating when he sees one of the ship's Jamaican waiters transform into a giant wolf. By the time he sobers up, the ship's docked in New Orleans and Kidman has been arrested for the grisly murder of another passenger found floating in the ship's hot tub, her throat torn out. Murry, who has no credible information to offer, finds himself under investigation as a possible accomplice. His refusal to discuss Éclair or what happened to her only fuels the suspicions of the local police. Going against all protocol, Murry digs into the Jamaican waiter's involvement with Sylvanya Benoit, a New Orleans socialite suspected of previous unsolved murders, when Kidman-now out on bail-vanishes. The only clue left behind is his blood-covered detective shield. NOPD Detective Jean Gallan is at odds with her boss when it comes to Murry and Kidman. She believes her childhood tormentor Benoit is behind the shipboard murder and Kidman's disappearance. But can she and Murry prove it before they both end up victims of the supernatural?