His brother has thrown himself under the eight o’clock freight train, or so he’s been told.
Felix is heartbroken, mystified, and above all else: deeply suspicious. His gut screams foul play.
The black sheep of a wealthy, respected family in New Orleans, Felix knows his gut is untested, naïve, addled by drugs and self-doubt. Who will believe him? Should he even trust himself?
As the Mardi Gras season descends on the city, Felix will have to find a way. His purpose is, for once, very clear: to find out who, or what, caused his big brother to die in such heinous circumstances, no matter what it takes.
But there are shadowy forces at work. As he gets in over his head, he’ll need the help of a garrulous police detective, the family’s ancient butler, and a massive pork fortune, all in order to fight his way to the bottom of things.
Will he live up to the family name and avenge his brother? Find out in part one of a hard-boiled detective series set in the Big Easy.
The Sexy Nerd's Review...
A few months back I read Pevey’s fifth installment in the Herbert and Melancon series and I absolutely loved it. Luckily for me, I’m glad I read this series out of order because I may not have given the other installments a chance after having read the first one.
Felix Herbert’s brother, Robert, was a prominent doctor in New Orleans serving his community for many years. Having come from good stock in the Herbert family business and name, Robert was someone the people respected. So, as you can imagine to the surprise of everyone when it was reported in the media that Robert had committed suicide by train, Felix was the first to call bullshit! Robert had a wife and children. He had everything to live for. He was Felix’s big brother and he looked out for him regardless as to his being the screw up in the family. Felix looked up to Robert and knew that there wasn’t any way in hell his brother would commit suicide, let alone do it by lying down on the tracks and letting a train literally obliterate his entire being.
Even though everyone continually advised the family that Robert’s death was a suicide, Felix refused to let it go. In fact, he believed whole heartedly that his brother didn’t kill himself that he and his longtime friend and butler to the family, Tomaś, went in search of answers to avenge his beloved brother. And with that came a whole host of problems for Felix and Tomaś. They find themselves getting arrested and thrown out of parties that the pair decided to crash. Mrs. Herbert was already grief stricken and now she had to worry about her youngest child finding himself in the ‘forever sleep’ situation. She bailed him and Tomaś out a few times and it was getting old.
However, there was some light at the end of the tunnel. Detective Melancon having seen better days and wished his body and mind were much younger than they were, came upon Felix and Tomaś on one such arrest landing them in his precinct. As soon as Detective Melancon interacted with Felix, he knew in his gut this young man, despite all his woes, had something special. And that, readers, is where our story takes us.
This was a good book but there were a few things that bothered me with it. For starters, I didn’t find much mystery in the story. I figured out pretty much what was happening early on. Even though I figured most of it out, that’s not what bothered me. As I mentioned, it didn’t appear to be much mystery as to who done it and why. I also found the story a bit wordy and boring at times. I think it’s safe to say that Pevey definitely has gotten better with telling his stories because I truly enjoyed the fifth installment of this series, but not so much a fan of the very first book. And I will say, as any author will tell you, your writing gets better with time and his most certainly did.
The premise of this book was spot on and the story line was one that I haven’t ever read before with the victim being killed like he was, so that truly held my interest. I wish he would have delved more into the investigation of the case and not so much on the victim’s family, but I suppose he was building up his characters with their back story for the series. I’m now interested to see how the rest of the series plays out.
The Sexy Nerd gives The Krewe four additional Mardi Gras necklaces to adorn. Overall, this was a pretty good read. It has some interesting situations that occur and some dynamic characters to delve into. Until next time, Nerds, you know what to do!
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