New Orleans Prime Evil — O'Neil De Noux

primeval original, primitive, ancient or resembling the earliest ages in the history of the world, of feelings or actions based on primitive instinct as in raw and elementary primeval forest earliest, first, prehistoric, pristine primeval fear innate, inborn, instinctive, primitive, basic, primordial, intuitive, inherent, basic The prime evil faced by police officers in a city described in a local newspaper in the Nineteenth Century as Hell on Earth �" is murder. From the autumn of 1887 through the summer of 1891, New Orleans Police Detective Jacques Dugas investigates the most intricate cases of mayhem and murder �" The city's most notorious madame is stabbed to death; a hulking simian killer lurks along the rooftops of the French Quarter; a blood-splattered woman dances around the body of her husband and maniacally laughs, “I did it! I did it!”; bodies of tortured men are found along fog-shrouded streets; the death of innocence plays out when a visitor on her honeymoon is strangled, a New Orleans beauty is found murdered; a missing woman case turns into a complicated mystery; the Gold Bug of Jean Lafitte draws hidden desires; killers killing killers; the severed hand of a murder victim points to her murderer. Det. Jacques Dugas, the lone French detective on a police force dominated by the Irish at the end of the Nineteenth Century, is called ‘the smart one'. Cerebral. A thinker. Yet, you will see he is quick to act with controlled aggression when necessary and persistent enough to remain focused on the case and not get distracted by a pretty woman, petty cops hell bent on revenge, or a case that seems unsolvable, as in “Maria's Hand.” He is a quiet, lonesome man, focused on the job and yet �" he knows, one day he'll find her. There's a woman out there for him. After all, he's a Frenchman. Two of the short stories in this collection are new, never published before. “A Willing Lad” is a chilling tale while “Worthy of Love” is as sad as the Edgar Allan Poe poem that introduces it. Included in New Orleans Prime Evil are my four stories inspired by the four mysteries written by the man who created the modern detective story, and my literary inspiration �" Edgar Allan Poe. His voice resonates through the book. My stories are nothing like Poe's except for my tipping my hat with the titles, a salute if you want to call it that. The inspiration drove me to create Jacques Dugas. I hope you enjoy his exploits.