Emerald Lizard: Neal Rafferty Mystery

When Jackie Silva, a New Orleans bar owner and Rafferty's former lover, calls for his aid and is then found slain, the private eye then becomes both prime suspect and mafia target

In his third appearance, two facts help likable, savvy New Orleans private eye Neal Rafferty solve this fast-paced, baffling mystery: 1) during recent hard times in the Louisiana oil patch, shylocks were charging 50% interest; and 2) before the ban on commercial fishing of redfish, the price was soaring in response to the national craze for the blackened delicacy. Against this background, promiscuous, manipulative Jackie Silva is killed and her Emerald Lizard lounge in seedy Westwego, a West Bank suburb unvisited by tourists, is torched. Jackie had complained that fisherman-mobster Bubba Brevna was threatening to have her tongue cut out unless she coughed up some of the money she owed him. Just kidding, Brevna tells Rafferty, but the investigator, who lost his virginity to Jackie at age 16, targets him and other swains of Jackie, not neglecting Brevna's hulking, moronic nephew, nicknamed Godzilla by the string of whores he runs for his uncle. Wiltz ( A Diamond Before You Die ) brings a story suffused with love for her hometown to a smashing, stormy climax. More, please.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Private investigator Neal Rafferty's third case ( The Killing Circle , J. Curley, 1989; A Diamond Before You Die , Mysterious Pr., 1987) arises when he answers a distress call from Jackie Silva, a former lover who now runs a lounge near New Orleans. Rafferty learns of her unpaid debt to a local shady operator, threats to her life and property, the several men unrequitedly in love with her, and, finally, her murder and the destruction of her bar. Amidst detailed descriptions of New Orleans and its inhabitants, and fired by the involvement of his best friend's fiancee, Rafferty zeroes in on the criminals in this exciting mixture of romance and action.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.