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    21 Steps
    21 Steps
    21 Steps
    Ebook28 pages20 minutes

    21 Steps

    By O'Neil De Noux

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    About this ebook

    The hardest part of committing a murder is getting away with it, especially when the case is assigned to a detective who is a relentless pursuer, a half-Cajun, half-Sioux investigator at the top of his game. The body of an elderly woman is discovered stuffed into her closet in her uptown mansion. Initial investigating officers find no leads, no suspects. NOPD Homicide Detective John Raven Beau focuses all of his senses, takes the necessary steps to determine time of death, cause of death, manner of death and most importantly, who killed her.

    The pursuit is methodical and calculated by a man who is a natural hunter, a man born and raised on a swamp, a man whose ancestors’ war cry echoes in his mind. Beau does not need to put on war paint to become a plain warrior. Woe-be-tide the killer. John Raven Beau is on the trial.

    If you enjoyed this story and would like to read more adventures of Detective John Raven Beau, you’ll want to read the new novel JOHN RAVEN BEAU and the short story collection NEW ORLEANS NOCTURNAL.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherO'Neil De Noux
    Release dateJun 10, 2011
    ISBN9781458184245
    21 Steps
    Author

    O'Neil De Noux

    O’Neil De Noux writes in many genres, primarily realistic crime fiction, strong on setting, mostly New Orleans, featuring the accurate dialogue of the streets. He also writes scintillating erotica. His publishing credits include 20 novels, nine short story collections and over 300 short stories. From contemporary to historical, De Noux uses several recurring characters in his New Orleans stories and novels: NOPD Homicide Detective John Raven Beau (21st Century); NOPD Homicide Detective LaStanza (20th Century); Private-eye Lucien Caye (1940s) and NOPD Detective Jacques Dugas (1890s). A primary theme in De Noux’s fiction is the effect of violence on victims and their families as well as the sometimes debilitating effect of violence on law enforcement officers, private-eyes and their loved ones. As a former private-eye and currently a police investigator, De Noux knows his subject well. De Noux’s stories span from mystery to mainstream, literary, suspense, thriller, science-fiction, fantasy, horror, erotica, humor, westerns, children’s fiction as well as cross-genre stories – erotic-detective, science-fiction mysteries and the like. O’Neil De Noux’s “The Heart Has Reasons” (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, September 2006) won the Private Eye Writers of America’s prestigious SHAMUS AWARD for BEST SHORT STORY 2007. The SHAMUS is given annually to recognize outstanding achievement in private eye fiction. In 2009, the Short Mystery Fiction Society awarded the Derringer Award for Best Novelette to another Lucien Caye story, “Too Wise” by O’Neil De Noux (which appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine’s November 2008 Issue). The Derringer Award is given annually to recognize excellence in the mystery short form. In June 2012, De Noux’s 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. A hyper-realistic crime story, JOHN RAVEN BEAU provides an intimate look into the beleaguered NOPD Homicide Division, a story that begins in the French Quarter and ends in a swamp, all within the city limits of America’s eternal city, a city that cannot be destroyed – New Orleans. A second Beau novel was released in 2013 – CITY OF SECRETS. Books by O’Neil De Noux (all available as eBooks and trade paperbacks). Go to www.oneildenoux.net for links.

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      Book preview

      21 Steps - O'Neil De Noux

      Cover Art Copyright 2011 O’Neil De Noux

      Copyright 2011 O’Neil De Noux

      Smashwords Edition

      21 Steps

      by O’Neil De Noux

      Detective John Raven Beau watched two coroner’s assistants carry the black body bag down the steps from the victim’s front porch, down the brick walkway, through the black wrought iron gate to the white, coroner’s office van parked against the curb. They slid the bag into the back of the van and slammed the door.

      Beau, standing six-two, a lean two hundred pounds, was thirty, a square-jawed man with dark brown hair and light brown eyes. The long sleeves of his white dress shirt were rolled up on his muscular forearms, light blue tie loosened, nine-millimeter Beretta Model 92-F snug in its black canvas holster on his right hip, star-and-crescent New Orleans Police badge clipped to his belt above the left front pocket of his navy blue suit pants.

      I was up on the pole all morning, said the man standing next to Beau. His name was Jerol Philiber, forty-eight years old with short black hair, skin as dark as oak bark, dark brown eyes, standing six feet even, weighing two-twenty and wearing a blue denim work jacket and denim pants.

      Beau copied Philiber’s pertinent information in his notes, taking it from Philiber’s driver’s license and Community Cable-TV ID card, before handing them back to the cable installer.

      We’re re-wiring this whole part of St. Charles Avenue, Philiber volunteered. I’m still not finished. Been here since six a.m.

      Beau looked at

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