Best-Selling Author Serves Up Creole And Crime With
Bad Karma In The Big Easy!
Title: Bad Karma In The Big Easy Bk#7
Series: Andy Broussard / Kit Franklin Series
Author: D.J. Donaldson
Publisher: Aster & Blue Editions LLC
BLURB from Goodreads
Andy Broussard, the plump and proud New Orleans medical examiner, obviously loves food. Less apparent to the casual observer is his hatred of murderers. Together with his gorgeous sidekick, psychologist Kit Franklyn, the two make a powerful, although improbable, mystery-solving duo. Among the dead collected in The Big Easy floodwaters after Hurricane Katrina are three nude female bodies, all caught in the same brush tangle, none with water in their lungs. Broussard knows in his ample gut that this was not an act of God, and not the work of Katrina. But Broussard has perhaps the biggest challenge of his colorful career. The city and all its records are destroyed, practically the entire population is scattered, the police force has no offices, and many of the rank and file (who haven't defected) are homeless. Soon, Broussard and his sidekick are on a dangerous journey through the obscenely damaged city, leading them to a kind of evil that neither of them could imagine.
SERIES LINKS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Don is a retired professor of Anatomy and Neurobiology. His entire academic career was spent at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, where he published dozens of papers on wound healing and taught microscopic anatomy to over 5,000 medical and dental students. He is also the author of seven published forensic mysteries and five medical thrillers. He lives in Memphis, Tennessee with his wife and two West Highland Terriers. In the spring of most years he simply cannot stop buying new flowers and other plants for the couple’s backyard garden.
EXCERPT
They reached the store’s kicked-in front door a few
seconds later. Flashlight on, Broussard went in first, Kit following closely.
Inside the store, they played their flashlight beams
around the dank interior. At first they saw nothing but mud-caked floorboards
and walls pockmarked with starbursts of mold, then Kit’s light picked up a
chain hanging from the ceiling. Following it up, she saw it was attached to a
large screw eye. Walking her beam back down the rope, she discovered a large
metal hook on the other end. By now, Broussard was looking at it, too.
“What do you suppose that was used for?” Kit said.
“Hangin’ somethin’.”
“What?”
But Broussard had already turned away to see what else
might be found. His light located some twisted chrome rods and a pair of loose
wheels that together, were probably once a rolling wardrobe trolley. It didn’t
take much detective work to arrive at that conclusion because the chrome
wreckage was lying on a clot of muddy clothing. With Kit supplementing his
light with hers, Broussard walked over to the clothes, knelt, and began pulling
at the matted, muddy mess to see what kind of clothes they were.
The first piece to come free was apparently a dress. He
reached down and worked another edge free.
A much brighter light than either of the ones they
carried suddenly blasted them from the doorway. They both turned to see who was
there.
“Look,” a mocking voice said. “Looters. I don’t think
there’s a lower form of humanity than people who would take advantage of a
catastrophe for personal gain. We should instruct them and set them on a better
path.”
“The woman’s a major babe,” a second voice said.
With the light shining in her eyes, it was hard to see
through it, but Kit thought there were only two of them.
Were they carrying guns? She couldn’t tell. If she
reached for hers and pointed it at them, the natural response would be for them
to start shooting. If she was going to produce the Ladysmith, better to just
start blasting away with it. But what if they weren’t armed? And maybe they’re
just kids. Could she live with killing an unarmed kid? Damn it.
The two moved inside. The one with the light shifted it
onto Broussard. “What are you dressed up for old man, Halloween?” the second
voice said. “Couldn’t you afford a real tie?”
“I’m the medical examiner,” Broussard said. “I do a lot
of my work bendin’ over examinin’ the dead. I found early in my career that a
long tie gets in the way. Kind of like what you’re doin’ right now.”
With the light out of her face, Kit played her own light
over the two so she could see their hands.
“Ohhh, get him,” the second thug said. “He ain’t scared.
But you oughtta be old man.”
The thug slipped his hand into his pocket and brought out
an object. There was a snicking sound and Kit’s light caught the glint of a
knife blade. She saw no guns.
Before she could reach for the Ladysmith, she was grabbed
in a bear hug from behind, pinning her arms. Her flashlight clattered to the
floor. Instinctively, she threw her head back, hoping to drive her skull into
her captor’s face, but he must have been expecting that because he moved his
head to the side.
“Your hair smells great,” he said breathing into her ear.
“I’ll bet your pussy smells even better.”
His breath curled around to the front of her face and went
into her nose. Though the odor in the store was bad, his breath was worse. One
of his hands slid down between her legs and his fingers began probing.
She stamped on his right foot as hard as she could. But
her soft deck shoes didn’t have any effect. She drove her left foot back into
his kneecap. That didn’t accomplish anything either. Running out of options,
she leaned into him and drove herself backward. He gave ground and they began
to move, slowly at first, then faster as she continued to dig in. They hit the
back wall a moment later with a thud. She heard the air rush out of him, but he
didn’t loosen his hold.
The guy with the knife advanced on Broussard.
“He likes unusual ties,” the guy with the light said.
“Cut his throat and pull his tongue through the opening. See how that suits
him.”
Kit watched with horror. They were both in trouble, but
it was Broussard she was worried about. They were going to kill him and she
couldn’t do anything about it. If she could just get free for a second... She
struggled in the grip of the geek holding her, but he was too strong.
Broussard shoved his flashlight into his back pocket.
Fists raised, he edged forward in a crouch to meet the guy with the knife. The
thug moved in closer, his hands making circling motions, trying to confuse
Broussard about the direction the attack would come. He lunged.
With surprising quickness, Broussard knocked the knife
hand to the side with his left hand. He took a step forward and brought his right fist around in a looping
motion that caught the thug hard on the side of the head. Stunned, the thug
staggered sideways, turned, and fell on his ass. But he didn’t drop the knife.
“I could be wrong, but I think you missed him, Chato,” the
guy with the light said. “Try again.”
Chato got awkwardly to his feet. Grinding his teeth and
growling, he charged again. This time he swung the knife from Broussard’s left
to his right in a huge underhand slicing motion. Broussard leaned back so the knife
barely missed his face. He grabbed the thug’s arm and used the momentum of the
guy’s charge to spin him around. Broussard then sent him sprawling onto the
floor with a kick in the glutes.
The guy with the light played the beam over his
embarrassed lackey, then turned it back onto Broussard. “You’re not an easy
mark, I’ll say that for you, old man. And I’ve enjoyed your performance. But
now it’s time you were dead…”
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