cover image Big Easy Backroad

Big Easy Backroad

Martin Hegwood. Minotaur Books, $22.95 (256pp) ISBN 978-0-312-20277-4

Hegwood's first novel trails PI Jack Delmas from the Louisiana bayou to the French Quarter of New Orleans as he dodges murder accusations from every angle. When Jack meets Barb Novak at the shady Comus Bar in the Big Easy, he's taken in by her sparkling green eyes and agrees to help locate her missing friend, Toulouse Caron. Days later, Caron is found with his throat cut alongside a miniature coffin with candles on it. Jack suspects the death is the work of ""the Undertaker,"" the fiend responsible for numerous local murders, but before he can make much headway with the theory, Barb is stabbed to death and Jack is under arrest for her murder, a victim of circumstance. Aided by Josh Hallman, who sports a powdered white wig but is ""the best criminal defense lawyer in New Orleans,"" Jack gains bail and launches an investigation. With Barb's sister Angie in tow, Jack puts the pieces together, driven by his desire to stay out of prison and by his b te-noir, Sheriff Artis Wade, who cares more about his golf dates than about the city's crime rate. Summertime readers will relish this saucy gumbo of backcountry adventure. (July)