New Orleans Confidential

Come prowl the lonely, sometimes violent streets of American's most exotic city, the city that care forgot, New Orleans, with a lone-wolf private-eye named Lucien Caye. Unlike most Forties P.I.s, Caye rarely drinks, doesn't smoke or wear a hat (it messes up his hair). He's six feet tall with wavy, dark brown hair and standard-issue Mediterranean-brown eyes, a sly smile and a clever mind that often gets him into trouble. Caye lives and works in the run-down New Orleans French Quarter of the late 1940s. He has a weakness for women, children and fellow World War II veterans, down on their luck. He knows how to make a decent living but often finds himself working pro-bono - in one case working to find a little girl's missing cat, in another searching for a boy's runaway father and in yet another, canvassing the Quarter for the child who wrote a note to Santa Claus, asking Santa to take him to live with the angels so his mother and father didn't have to buy food for him anymore. They don't have any money. Murder is often the name of the game and Caye sometimes leaves town in pursuit of the truth, usually aiding a pretty woman in need of help, in more ways than one. Unfortunately, the truth is often ugly, often dangerous and usually resides on the loneliest part of town. This Second Edition includes two award winning stories. "The Heart Has Reasons" won the Private Eye Writers of America's prestigious SHAMUS AWARD for BEST SHORT STORY. The SHAMUS is given annually to recognize outstanding achievement in private eye fiction. The Short Mystery Fiction Society awarded the DERRINGER AWARD for BEST NOVELETTE to another Lucien Caye story, "Too Wise." The DERRINGER is given annually to recognize excellence in the mystery short form. Hope you enjoy this stroll along the wild side of New Orleans.

Born in New Orleans, O’Neil De Noux is a prolific American writer of novels and short stories. 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, science-fiction, suspense, fantasy, horror, western, literary, religious, romance, humor and erotica. In 2007, The Private Eye Writers of America awarded its prestigious SHAMUS AWARD for Best Short Story to ＂The Heart Has Reasons＂ by O’Neil De Noux (the cover story of the September 2006 Issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine). The Shamus Awards are given annually to recognize outstanding achievement in private eye fiction. ＂The Heart Has Reasons.＂ De Noux is also the 2009 DERRINGER AWARD winner for Best Novelette for ＂Too Wise.＂ The Derringer Awards are given annually by the Short Mystery Fiction Society to recognize excellence in the short mystery fiction form. Another De Noux story, ＂The Bonnie and Clyde Caper＂ was runner up in the Derringer Award Best Long Story category. In 2010, De Noux made a move to eBooks and print-on-demand books, teaming with other artists in the art co-op Big Kiss Productions and he quickly published a number of books: SLICK TIME, a sexy caper novel, NEW ORLEANS NOCTURNAL and MAFIA APHRODITE, an erotic suspense novel. In March 2011, the novel JOHN RAVEN BEAU was published by Big Kiss Productions, which was named 2011 POLICE BOOK OF THE YEAR by Police-Writers.com, a group that boasts of 1153 state and local law enforcement officials from 485 state and local law enforcement agencies who have written 2504 police books. In 2011, BATTLE KISS was released, a 320,000 word epic of love and war set against the panorama of the Battle of New Orleans, January 8, 1815. In 2012, Mr. De Noux’s first private eye was published. ENAMORED, a novel of obsession and murder, is set in 1950 New Orleans and BOURBON STREET is a crime novel set in 1947 New Orleans. Books published in 2013-2016 include USS RELENTLESS, a saga of the US Navy in the Age of Sail, the Lucien Caye mysteries NEW ORLEANS RAPACIOUS and HOLD ME, BABE, as well as the first Jacques Dugas novel THE FRENCH DETECTIVE, John Raven Beau novels CITY OF SECRETS and NUDE IN RED, LaStanza novels NEW ORLEANS HOMICIDE, THE BLUE NUDE and THE LONG COLD and the World War II novel DEATH ANGELS. O’Neil De Noux was Vice-President of the Private Eye Writers of America in 2013. De Noux’s web site is http: //www.oneildenoux.net