An intriguing mystery thriller from New Orleans

By: 
Jan Jones

Too late I found that Seth Pevey’s “Casket Girls” was his fourth in the Herbert and Melancon series of mystery thrillers. That made it a little confusing, but very interesting.

Casket girls got their name from a mispronunciation of their little suitcases – cassettes. They were brought to New Orleans as potential brides.

Felix Herbert is wealthy but is a private detective. David Melancon is a retired NOLA police detective. Fearing he’ll end up like so many retired officers, David has joined Felix’s firm.

Tina Green is Felix’s girlfriend. She’s only in her early 20s but has a painful past that she refuses to discuss. Tina relates to the men she sees outside of St. Benedict’s soup kitchen. One of them is Lonnie Comier, a combat veteran and drug addict with a devoted black lab, Pinot.

Tina knows that the homeless sometimes disappear, but she is concerned when Pinot shows up without Lonnie. It takes a little convincing to get Felix and David to agree to check with the men at St. Benedict’s.

Once inside they are confronted by an Ursuline nun who recognizes Tina from her time at the Ursuline orphanage and makes hurtful comments. After questioning the men with no results, the detective’s sense that there is something very wrong going on at the soup kitchen.

They get a break when Jim agrees to give them information if they will get his ancient typewriter repaired. Then he immediately types out descriptions of 11 men who have disappeared. All were homeless drug addicts who ate at the soup kitchen.

A little more digging directs them to tunnels beneath the massive statue of Simone Bolivar where many of the men sleep. They find is a small shrine to St. Benedict. Somehow that shrine is a link to the disappearances.

During a military reenactment a man staggers onto the field and dies. Malancon gives his former girlfriend Detective Janine a copy of their descriptions. The dead man matches number six. He has more drugs than blood in his system and was covered with a fine layer of sugar.

On a hunch, Felix and Malancon take a tour of the old Ursuline convent where the casket girls were housed until marriage. They sneak off to the third floor and find a little case filled with letters.

Felix steals one letter and discovers that the girls were suffering from a blood condition. Blood transfusions didn’t exist back then, so they were often forced to drink blood to get the elements their bodies needed. Thus, the rumors of vampires.

Suddenly the situation makes sense. Someone at St Benedict’s is snatching homeless men and removing their blood. While Malancon watches a ruined sugar refinery, Tina and Felix return to St. Benedict’s. He questions Jim while Tina confronts the priest in the confessional. Suddenly, Tina disappears.

With help from Jim, Felix finds a hidden door and tunnels leading out. Meanwhile Pinot has led Malancon to a ruined sugar plant. Felix convinced them Tina is being held inside, but where?

Knowing that the police are at least an hour away, Felix and Malancon attempt a rescue and manage to save both Tina and Lonnie as well as capture the former Ursuline nun who was behind the whole mess. Malancon gets her to confess that she was using the blood to save her son, who suffered from the same condition as the casket girls. She felt that using the homeless served a higher purpose.

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