City of Secrets

Two months after Hurricane Katrina the New Orleans Police Department is as devastated as the city - police stations destroyed, mass desertions of officers, no reliable communications, a fraction of the force struggling to hold it all together. The slow process of rebuilding brings an influx of honest workers along with criminals eager to fill the void left when most of the thugs evacuated the city. The Brown Ravens, a multiracial, super-violent crew of drug dealers sets up in the half-deserted city. To solidify their turf, they begin to litter the streets with murder victims. Organized crime has a distinct advantage against disorganized law enforcement. As gunshots break the silence of Halloween night, a detective responds, discovers the body of a young woman marked with a Brown Raven emblem. It's a message, the deadly gang telling everyone this is their territory. Wrong. The detective standing next to the body is different. He is used to working alone, used to tracking killers, used to taking the law into his own hands. Thus begins a long, bloody struggle between a gang of sociopathic murderers and a homicide detective called John Raven Beau, half-Cajun, half-Sioux, a cunning, fearless man who is ruthless when needed, a cop who hunts killers with methodical, calculating precision. Beau will bring the killers to justice. In handcuffs or in a body bag. With the blood of warrior ancestors surging through his veins, Beau will relentlessly pursue the murderers until it is over, one way or the other. from the mind of John Raven Beau - This isn't a story about Hurricane Katrina, although it takes place shortly after. It isn't a story about New Orleans, although that's the city with the secrets. It's not even about law and order, crime and punishment, although there's a lot of punishment dealt out by me, because that's what this story is about. Me. John Raven Beau. I used to think a homicide detective in New Orleans was like a trooper with Custer at the Little Big Horn. It's being half Sioux, I guess. But in the fall of 2005, it is more like being a Spartan at Thermopylae. Only there aren't three hundred of us working together. It's just one. Me. If you think I'm exaggerating, read the damn story. I have no excuse for what I did. Killing a man is never pleasant. The blood of my ancestors, the great Lakota tribe, whose ferocity brought our tribe to dominate the great plains before the coming of the white man, rises in my veins and directs me on a warpath. No other way to put it. All cities have secrets. Some have men like me.

Born in New Orleans, O’Neil De Noux is a prolific American writer of novels and short stories. Although much of De Noux’s fiction falls under the mystery genre (character-drive crime fiction primarily), he has published stories in many disciplines including 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 Shamus Award is given annually recognize outstanding achievement in private eye fiction. ＂The Heart Has Reasons＂ features De Noux’s private eye Lucien Caye. De Noux is also the 2009 DERRINGER AWARD winner for Best Novelette for ＂Too Wise＂ - another Lucien Caye private eye mystery. The Derringer Awards are given annually by the Short Mystery Fiction Society to recognize excellence in the short mystery fiction form. De Noux joined other artists in the art co-op Big Kiss Productions to release SLICK TIME a sexy caper novel, NEW ORLEANS NOCTURNAL is a collection of nine crime stories featuring John Raven Beau. In March 2011, the novel JOHN RAVEN BEAU 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 January 2012, De Noux published BATTLE KISS a 320,000 word epic of love and war set against the panorama of the Battle of New Orleans, January 8, 1815. So timely is the book, released as the bicentennial of the War of 1812 arrives, Mr. De Noux received an Artist Services Career Advancement Award from the Louisiana Division of the Arts for his work on BATTLE KISS. Also in 2012, Mr. De Noux’s first private eye was published. ENAMORED, a novel of obsession and murder, is set in 1950 New Orleans Another crime novel, BOURBON STREET, set in 1947, was released in 2012, along with the young-adult superhero novel MISTIK. In 2012, O’Neil De Noux was elected Vice-President of the Private Eye Writers of America. Web page is: http: //www.oneildenoux.net On January 1, 2013, the long-awaited new LaStanza New Orleans Police Novel NEW ORLEANS HOMICIDE was published along with the backlist of the five previous novels in the series.