Thrown Away Child - Paperback

by Thomas Adcock (Author)

From the Edgar Award-winning author of Grief Street comes a Neil Hockaday mystery filled with a complex Creole stew of family secrets, sour politics, ritual murder, and bittersweet revenge.

While in New Orleans to meet the family of his new wife, actress Ruby Flagg, Neil Hockaday was expecting the good times to roll. Instead, Hock encounters the dankest pits of the big easy and demons of his own.

When Ruby's cousin Perry Duclat is suspected of murdering his former cellmate at Angola penitentiary whose mutilated body was found branded with a bizarre acronym, MOMS, Hock teams up with a disenchanted New Orleans cop to conduct a highly unofficial investigation.

During his time in Louisiana, Hock faces a cast of only-in-New-Orleans characters, including a scamming alderman, hypnotic preacher, and a cryptic old jazz funeral man, Joe Never Smile, whose legendary horses weep tears when they pull hearses through the sad streets of an enigmatic city.

Back Jacket

Set in New Orleans, the hometown of Hock's new wife, black actress Ruby Flagg, Thrown-Away Child is a pungent Creole stew of family secrets, sour politics, ritual murder, and bittersweet revenge. Hoping for respite from his hard-drinking past in Manhattan, Hock travels to the fabled Land of Dreams with Ruby to meet her close-knit family. Hardly have the newlyweds arrived when the peaceful home of Hock's mother-in-law, Violet, is disrupted by two racist cops hunting for Ruby's cousin Perry Duclat, who has been living with Violet since his mother abandoned him. Now this thrown-away child is a grown and troubled man, wanted for murder. The victim is Perry's former cellmate at Angola penitentiary, whose mutilated body has been branded with a bizarre acronym - MOMS. When Perry disappears, Hock teams up with a disenchanted New Orleans cop to conduct a highly unofficial Investigation. Before justice is finally done, there are more brutal murders - and more brandings. Among the slain: a little boy so alone in the world he can only guess at his name. Besides the terrible murders, Hock must resolve personal quandaries: the meaning of Ruby's unsettling emotions about returning to her southern roots, and his own future - if any - with the New York Police Department.

Author Biography

Thomas Adcock is a journalist and mystery author. He has written for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Chicago Today, and The New York Times. He's the author of numerous titles, including the Neil Hockaday series. He is the recipient of the Edgar Award for his novel Dark Maze.