Jacques Dugas New Orleans Mysteries Books
For over a hundred years, New Orleanians have settled affairs of honor at Dueling Oaks in the City Park (formerly the Allard Plantation). In the early years, none dare refuse a challenge. It was the Code Duello. This changed after the city became American. In 1891, dueling is outlawed and a death there draws NOPD Det. Jacques Dugas to fog-shrouded oaks dripping Spanish moss. Dugas promptly arrests the winner of the latest duel for manslaughter. The subsequent post-mortem exam of the deceased turns the affair around as the man did not die as a result of the duel, but from arsenic poisoning. Aided by a pretty female journalist, Dugas must unravel this mystery to its surprising conclusion. “For Love’s Sake,” originally appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine’s July-August 2013 Issue, and was a finalist for the 2014 DERRINGER AWARD for BEST NOVELETTE. The DERRINGER AWARDS are given annually by the Short Mystery Fiction Society to recognize excellence in the short mystery fiction form. NOPD Detective Jack Dugas has appeared in a dozen short stories published in top mystery magazines Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and in numerous anthologies. A collection of ten Dugas stories was published by Big Kiss Productions in 2011 entitled NEW ORLEANS PRIME EVIL, which is available as a trade paperback and eBook.
In 1900, the crumbling French Quarter is an enclave of immigrants, primarily Sicilian. Early one July evening, four year old Luigi Bova is lured from in front of his house by the promise of ice-cream by a man who tosses Luigi into the back of a passing wagon. A frantic search ensues but Sicilians are reluctant to call the New Orleans Police Department populated by mostly Irishmen. Detective Jacques Dugas, taking a short cut through the Quarter, comes upon a street full of people looking for the missing boy and takes command of the situation.An immediate search for the boy fails to locate Luigi or any leads and Det. Dugas begins a long, painstaking investigation among people who had no use for the police, people who speak a different language, people with their own way of dealing with crime. Assaulted from all sides, Dugas assembles a team of detectives, street cops, reluctant-but-sympathetic Italians and a strikingly-pretty woman, part Corsican, part English, who happens to be an expert linguist with a gift of getting Sicilians to talk. They are soon pitted against formidable villains including a crime boss known as il Maiale (the hog) and a terrifying henchman whose skeletal visage and cold black eyes have earned him the nickname il Cadavere (the cadaver).From the crowded French Quarter, across sprawling turn-of-the-century New Orleans, to the wilds of Algiers across the river, detectives follow false lead after false lead, as bogus ransom notes arrive almost daily, until Dugas finds a street urchin, another little boy who saw who took Luigi. With the blood-feud between Irish and Italians ready to rekindle – ten years earlier the first NOPD chief of police was murdered by the Mafia – with growing unrest in the black community as the south begins to implement the hated Jim Crow Laws – with few allies – it takes an American with a French surname to remained focused on one mission. Find Luigi Bova.Jacques Dugas, the French Detective, is featured in the short story collection NEW ORLEANS PRIME EVIL, 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.
A New Orleans historical mystery steampunk thriller set in 1900.Howls reverberate off lacework balconies along fog-shrouded streets of the old quarter as New Orleans Police detectives search for missing men. The howling continues as the mutilated bodies of the missing are discovered. At night, terrorized people huddle behind barred doors in the French Quarter. The superstitious think the killer is a werewolf.Is the work of this maniac connected to the sudden, nearly uncontrollable lust overwhelming several pretty women involved in the case, including Detective Jacques Dugas’s darling Evelyn? A deadly game of sex and violence plays out as police search for a gruesome murderer.NOPD must work in the unfriendly Old French Quarter, now an Italian enclave. Sicilians and Napolitanos and other Italians distrust the police even when the police work in their interest. It does not help that NOPD is predominately Irish. French-American Detective Jacques Dugas, an exception and an exceptional detective leads the investigation as the bodies are discovered.Two women are quickly involved in the drama, both Corsican-American. Donatella Saliceti is found lying unconscious on the banquette (sidewalk in New Orleans) on the evening of one of the murders. She is somehow connected to this but her connection is illusive. The other woman is Evelyn Dominici, Dugas’s lover, a beautiful, intelligent woman, living in an uptown mansion on Audubon Park. Her bright mind immediately questions if the mutilation are cannibalistic.When the howling comes to Audubon Park, Dugas chases what many believe to be a werewolf preying on New Orleanians. How can ordinary police battle the supernatural? Could these killings be a sacrifice to the psychopompos – the ‘spirit who escorts newly deceased to the afterlife?This book follows THE FRENCH DETECTIVE in the series.In 1900, the crumbling French Quarter is an enclave of immigrants, primarily Sicilian. Early one July evening, four year old Luigi Bova is lured from in front of his house by the promise of ice-cream by a man who tosses Luigi into the back of a passing wagon. A frantic search ensues but Sicilians are reluctant to call the New Orleans Police Department populated by mostly Irishmen. Detective Jacques Dugas, taking a short cut through the Quarter, comes upon a street full of people looking for the missing boy and takes command of the situation.An immediate search for the boy fails to locate Luigi or any leads and Det. Dugas begins a long, painstaking investigation among people who had no use for the police, people who speak a different language, people with their own way of dealing with crime. Assaulted from all sides, Dugas assembles a team of detectives, street cops, reluctant-but-sympathetic Italians and a strikingly-pretty woman, part Corsican, part English, who happens to be an expert linguist with a gift of getting Sicilians to talk. They are soon pitted against formidable villains including a crime boss known as il Maiale (the hog) and a terrifying henchman whose skeletal visage and cold black eyes have earned him the nickname il Cadavere (the cadaver).From the crowded French Quarter, across sprawling turn-of-the-century New Orleans, to the wilds of Algiers across the river, detectives follow false lead after false lead, as bogus ransom notes arrive almost daily, until Dugas finds a street urchin, another little boy who saw who took Luigi. With the blood-feud between Irish and Italians ready to rekindle – ten years earlier the first NOPD chief of police was murdered by the Mafia – with growing unrest in the black community as the south begins to implement the hated Jim Crow Laws – with few allies – it takes an American with a French surname to remained focused on one mission. Find Luigi Bova.
Heat in New Orleans – temperatures in the high 90s, humidity near 100%, the days steamy and stifling, the nights steamy and sultry. Add the heat New Orleans police must use to catch murderers. In the summer of 1901, a black man is lynched in the savage swamp on the east side of New Orleans known as Bayou Sauvage. Detective Jacques Dugas and his new partner, Eddie Rosata, are sent to the mosquito-infested swamp to investigate. The case is a whodunit and an whoisit as the victim is unidentified. There is no law against lynching a black man in 1901 but Dugas will pursue who committed this horrific murder and find a way to punish them. Detectives are distracted by another case, the wife of an uptown friend of the governor is missing. Newly-wed Dugas is also distracted by his wife Evelyn’s sexual antics. A labyrinth of clues draws Dugas to a nudist colony across the lake from the city where Evelyn can play out one of her sexual fantasies as Dugas links both of his cases to the colony. About the Author Born in New Orleans, O’Neil De Noux is a prolific American writer of novels and short stories with 46 books published, over 400 short story sales and a screenplay produced. Much of De Noux’s writing is character-driven crime fiction, although he has written in many disciplines including historical fiction, children’s fiction, mainstream fiction, mystery, science-fiction, suspense, fantasy, horror, western, literary, religious, romance, erotica and humor. Mr. De Noux is a retired police officer, a former homicide detective. His writing has garnered a number of awards including the UNITED KINGDOM SHORT STORY PRIZE, the SHAMUS AWARD twice (given annually by the Private Eye Writers of America to recognize outstanding achievement in private eye fiction), the DERRINGER AWARD (given annually by the Short Mystery Fiction Society to recognize excellence in short mystery fiction) and POLICE BOOK of the YEAR (awarded by PoliceWriters.com). Two of his stories have been featured in the prestigious BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES annual anthology (2003 and 2013). In 2012, O’Neil De Noux received an Artist Services Career Advancement Award from the Louisiana Division of the Arts for BATTLE KISS, a 320,000-word epic of love and war set against the panorama of the Battle of New Orleans. De Noux received the 2015 Literary Artist of the Year President’s Award from the St. Tammany Parish Art’s Council, St. Tammany Parish, LA. He is a past Vice-President of the Private Eye Writers of America. For additional O’Neil De Noux material, go to: http://www.oneildenoux.com