When someone begins killing New Orleans street people, it affects the City's tourist trade just beginning to recover from Hurricane Katrina. More than just simple acts of murder, voodoo is involved, the killer likely an actual Vodoun deity. Homicide detective Tony Nicosia seeks the help of gumshoe, and Big Easy insider Wyatt Thomas. Wyatt enlists Mama Mulate, Tulane English professor, and actual voodoo mambo. Together, they try to unravel the strangest mystery to hit the venerable City since the era of Marie Laveau.
An excerpt from
Big Easy
Prologue
Gaylon LeBlanc was a collector. Not stamps or coins, but shriveled objects, much like the one he carried in his pocket for luck. He fingered it as African drums, echoing from the cultural center further up in Louis Armstrong Memorial Park, drowned out the chaos of Bourbon Street. Intent on the arrival of someone he knew and his upcoming task, He paid no attention.
Local musicians met regularly at the cultural center to recreate and maintain voodoo drumming, an ancient percussion style that had preceded the birth of the blues and New Orleans jazz. The musicians had no idea their hectic tempo would backdrop a real Vodoun ceremony that would culminate in suffering and death.
Gaylon waited in a part of the park officially named Beauregard Square, also known as Place du Cirque, or Place des Negres at different times during New Orleans’ past. Most locals still called it Congo Square. Gaylon, dressed as the voodoo deity Baron Samedi, in a tuxedo, top hat, and flowing cape, had arrived at Congo Square long before dark. Near the fountain centering the symbolically arranged, cobblestone pavement, he awaited the arrival of someone.
His cigar remained unlit, and his purple sunglasses served no purpose except to save his blue eyes from the glare of a full moon. He removed them as a taxi halted at the entrance to the square. When the passenger, a nun dressed in a black habit, offered the driver a ten, he motioned it off with a wave of his head. After crossing himself, he pulled off in a screech of burning rubber.
The nun stuffed the note in her clothes and turned to the man awaiting her, no words exchanged when she reached him. Strapping her arms around him, she probed his mouth with her tongue and groped his privates. Undisturbed by her blatant, sexual advances, Gaylon reciprocated, returning her ardor with his own. Wild drumming continued as he tore open her robe, ripped off her starched head cover, and tossed them to the ground.
She stood before him in only a knee-length mantle of loosely beaded seashells that did little to hide her athletic body. Blonde hair tumbled to her waist. The fake sister had something else hidden beneath her robe.
Backing away from him, she grasped a black rooster by its neck in one hand, an opened bottle of Jamaican rum in the other. The rooster, sedated by strong rum poured down its throat, was alive, though it wouldn’t survive for long. Gaylon watched as she twisted the head off the bird and tossed its lifeless body to the ground.
Though the headless rooster was dead, it ran in ever-wider circles until it finally dropped, blood gushing from its neck. The woman grabbed the rooster’s pulsating body and held it, along with the bottle, over her head. Warm blood and strong alcohol poured down her face, mixing with beads of sweat on her bare neck and breasts.
Drawing ever closer to Gaylon, she began dancing a slave dance, the wild bamboula, her sultry moves daring him to join her. The percussive melody pervading the park had become more frantic as if feeding on the strength of the two dancers. Her beaded wrap glistened with sweat and blood as the drumming reached a crescendo. When it did, she stopped dancing, standing upright in front of Gaylon.
She smacked his forehead with her bloody palm, and he went immediately to his knees, grabbing his temples as if they were about to explode. He was no longer Gaylon LeBlanc when he got off the ground. He was now Baron Samedi. The voodoo deity had taken possession of his body.
The woman began dancing again, slowly at first, her gestures more sexually overt. Caught in a similar sexual frenzy, Baron Samedi grabbed the woman, reclined her on the cold stone and began humping her in a ritual manner. Upon completion of the wild, yet simulated performance, a man burst from the shadows and approached the couple.
Built like an all-pro linebacker, the large man was also tall; his crooked smile gave him a fierce look in light reflecting from the full moon. Moving away from Baron Samedi, she danced toward the man with unkempt hair, and then blew something up his nose. Whatever she had done caused an instant and noticeable change in his persona. A mischievous smile replaced his scowl almost instantly. He continued smiling as she tore open the front of his shirt and clawed deep scratch marks down his chest with her long fingernails. Frenetic voodoo drumming continued as she rested her hands on his shoulders, stood on her tiptoes, and mauled him with her lips.
“This is the night you’ve waited for, my handsome lover. The great Ghede himself has sent Baron Samedi to accompany you. Tonight, he will help you get revenge on someone that has wronged you.”
She turned when Baron Samedi spoke. “You are not yet done. You have one more thing to do before my needs are satisfied.”
The woman smiled and prostrated herself in front of Baron Samedi, crawling toward him on her belly, and then licking his shoes with her long tongue.
“I pray you will return him safely to my bed,” she said.
Baron Samedi smiled as he dusted his tuxedo, reached into his pocket, removed a frightful object, and showed it to her.
“He will have his revenge, and I will have another nipple for my collection.”
As Baron Samedi departed Congo Square, a bus passed on the street, its motor saturating humid, summer air with the momentary odor of burning diesel. Before he had disappeared through the gate, the tall man lifted the woman and bent her over a park bench where they repeated much of the carnal action she and Gaylon/Samedi had enjoyed. This time, it wasn’t simulated. She pointed toward the entrance to the square after pushing him away.
“Go now. Follow Baron Samedi and return triumphant to my bed before the sun rises.”
Voodoo drumming had ceased, no longer masking the noisy confusion of nearby Bourbon Street, as the man followed Baron Samedi out of the square and vanished into the night.
Not far away, a dog howled at the moon, the mournful sound melding with the screech of brakes on N. Rampart. As a tugboat coming up the river sounded its whistle, a dark cloud shrouded the light of the moon. The ensuing darkness masked the man as he left the nun alone in Congo Square and followed Baron Samedi down Rue St. Peter.
What fans are saying
"Wilder's fiction is like an ice cold, Hurricane slush on a hot Louisiana day."
—Clarion Review
Eric Wilder writes in a concise, easy-to-read manner that gives the reader just enough details to make the story enjoyable. I liked the way he wove the story around real restaurants/bars in the French Quarter and nearby areas. He apparently is very familiar with New Orleans and its culture, and did quite a bit of research on voodoo. I liked everything about the book, including the cover depicting the tomb of Marie Laveau, the most famous voodoo queen. Having everything that could translate into a good movie, I could easily see this book being adapted to a film version.
—Patti Bray
Nice! Evocative and provocative, "Big Easy" also is an easy, while compelling, read. Wilder slipped in a lot of education about Voudoun, its followers and its rituals, simultaneously injecting elements of the supernatural so deftly that they are entirely acceptable. I shall now Google "yohimbe" and hope that I can locate a reliable supplier (after which I must identify a willing subject for my experiment).
—Susan "NC Nana"
Author Bio
Born near Black Bayou in Louisiana, Eric grew up listening to his grandmothers' tales of ghosts, voodoo, and political corruption. The author of seven novels, he now lives in Oklahoma, near Route 66, with wife Marilyn.
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