MARDI GRAS MAMBO

A ménage à trois of gay private eyes shelves their decadence plans to solve a Carnival murder puzzle.

Sleuth, party boy and first-person narrator Scotty Bradley (Jackson Square Jazz, 2005, etc.) has a full feast of New Orleans revelry planned with his two lovers and business partners, Colin and Frank. Ecstasy in controlled doses is a necessary appetizer and Scotty scores some from his regular dealer Misha, a muscle-bound veteran of the Russian Army and an incorrigible flirt. The merriment of Carnival comes to a screeching halt with Misha’s murder. Instantly, tough police detective Venus Casanova is giving Scotty the third degree; he always seems to be nearby when murder happens in her district. Weird developments follow, one after another. Though seemingly gay, Misha was actually married to Sylvia Overton, the flamboyant close friend of Scotty’s mother Sophie. When Scotty visits Sylvia, he finds Misha alive and well and gets another story: The dead man was Misha’s twin, Sasha. It is déjà vu twice more when Misha is killed again, but not really; surviving Misha explains that the victim this time was Pasha and that the men were triplets, sharing an identity and a visa provided by Scotty’s philanthropic grandmother. Scotty frequently consults The Goddess, his unseen spiritual advisor, on the way to unraveling this mystery, whose solution involves a betrayal by someone very close to him.

Loopy whodunit that rises or falls on the reader’s affinity for Scotty.