The Spy Who Used My Love - O'Neil De Noux - Bog

The wife of an old army buddy hires New Orleans Private Eye Lucien Caye. She knows her husband has the occasional girlfriend, but he might be doing something dangerous at work, something that might land him in jail or worse. Lucien confirms there's a girlfriend involved but the case rapidly whirls out of control with lies, deceptions, espionage, a murder, a suicide, a Soviet spy and a mystifying femme fatale. The confusing case draws in the FBI and CIA as Lucien is interrupted by another friend who found $20,000 hidden in a window seat of his apartment and a strange man who hires Lucien to investigate the growing Beat Generation in New Orleans as well as a nudist colony across Lake Pontchartrain. Lucien and his alluring wife, the exquisite Alizée - now a PI - need all their moxie to sift through these cases before someone else dies.About Lucien CayeLucien Caye works in the run-down New Orleans French Quarter of the late 1940s and early 1950s. Unlike most P.I.s, Caye rarely drinks, doesn't smoke and only wears a hat only when necessary (it messes up his hair). He's six feet tall with wavy, dark brown hair and standard-issue Mediterranean-brown eyes, a sly smile and a clever mind that often gets him into trouble.He has a weakness for women, children and fellow World War II veterans, down on their luck. He knows how to make a decent living but often finds himself working pro-bono - in one case working to find a little girl's missing cat, in another searching for a boy's runaway father and in yet another, canvassing the Quarter for the child who wrote a note to Santa Claus, asking Santa to take him to live with the angels so his mother and father didn't have to buy food for him anymore. They don't have much money.Born in New Orleans of French and Spanish descent, Caye attended Holy Cross High School before working as a copy boy, then cub reporter for The New Orleans Item. A stint as a crime reporter drew Caye to law enforcement and he joined the New Orleans Police Department in 1939 where he was a patrol officer working uptown until December 7, 1941.Caye joined the U.S. Army serving in North Africa, Sicily and the subsequent Italian campaign at Anzio and Salerno. At the Battle of Monte Cassino, Caye met and befriended journalist Ernie Pyle during the bitter stalemate. Leading an assault on the infamous monastery, Caye was seriously wounded by a German sniper and sent home with a Purple Heart medal and a Silver Star for bravery.After the war, he returned to the police department, working the French Quarter beat until deciding he preferred working alone and set up shop in 1947 in an apartment building at the corner of Barracks and Dauphine Streets, not far from the fictional residence of Tennessee Williams's Stanley Kowalski. Living upstairs, Caye's office faces Barracks Street and the small Cabrini Playground Park across the narrow street.In 1950, Lucien falls in love three times (see novel ENAMORED) as a seven year old girl changes his life. In 1951, an alluring, auburn-haired, doe-eyed beauty named Alizée enters Lucien's life and things change again for this hardboiled private eye (see novel HOLD ME, BABE). ENAMORED and HOLD ME, BABE were finalists for the Private Eye Writers of America SHAMUS AWARD - awarded annually by the Private Eye Writers of America to recognize outstanding achievement in private eye fiction. Other Caye books include the collection NEW ORLEANS CONFIDENTIAL and novels NEW ORLEANS RAPACIOUS, DAME MONEY and WALKIN' THE BLUES