The Cottoncrest Curse
When they find out who you really are, you’re never safe.
Two decades after the end of the Civil War, an elderly Confederate Colonel viciously slits the throat of his beautiful young wife and then fatally shoots himself. Sheriff Raifer Jackson, however, believes that this may be a double homicide, and suspicion falls upon both Jake Gold, an itinerant peddler who trades razor-sharp knives for fur and who has many deep secrets to conceal, and upon Jenny, the multi-lingual daughter of a slave who has her own secrets that she does not want revealed.
Jake and Jenny must stay one step ahead of the law, as well as the racist Knights of the White Camellia, as they interact with landed gentry, former slaves, crusty white field hands, crafty Cajuns, and free men of color, all while trying to keep one final promise before more lives are lost.
The gruesome deaths of the Confederate Colonel and his wife are part of a trail of mysterious events igniting feuds that burn a path from the cotton fields to the courthouse steps, from the moss-draped bayous of Cajun country to the bordellos of 19th century New Orleans, from the Civil War era to the Civil Rights era and across the Jim Crow decades to the Freedom Marches of the 1960s, Orleans, from the Civil War era to the Civil Rights era, from Plessy v. Ferguson to Brown v. Board of Education and into the present.
At the heart of this heart-racing thriller are the relationships across the decades among blacks and whites, former slaves and landed aristocracy, freedom fighters and segregationists, and people of different backgrounds and religions.
“A gripping debut mystery.” Publishers Weekly
“High drama” taking readers on an “epic journey” where “surprises abound.”
Southern Literary Review
A “must read” that is “highly recommended.” Historical Novel Society
“Vivid” and “action packed.” Foreword Reviews
A “thrilling murder mystery” told in “brisk chapters.” 225 Magazine
“Talented prose and tack-sharp detail.”
Alan Jacobson, U.S.A. Today National Bestselling Author
“Impeccably researched, deftly plotted and flawlessly executed.”
Sheldon Siegel, New York Times Best Selling Author
“Sometimes you need a good, old-fashioned Southern gothic.” “This book has it all.” Country Roads Magazine
PROLOGUE
TODAY.
Nobody blanched as she described the gruesome event. They were captivated.
“It happened right up here,” said the docent, who was dressed in an antebellum costume complete with lace collar, crinoline skirt, and double petticoats. The tour group, which had been wilting while standing outside Cottoncrest in the intense Louisiana heat and humidity, gratefully jammed into the wide hallway that ran through the center of the massive plantation home.
The docent signaled to the tourists to follow her as she ascended the curved interior staircase. “The main house has been restored —y’all come up single file, please—has been restored to how it looked in the 1890s, when Colonel Judge Augustine Chastaine, the son of the original owner, lived here.”
The docent paused, her back to the wall, carefully avoiding an area near the banister. “This is what y’all came to see, right here, where the most notorious murder-suicide in Louisiana occurred.
“One step below where I’m standing. As you come up the stairs behind me, look . . . but don’t walk . . . on these Plexiglas panels. This is where the Colonel Judge brutally slit the throat of his beautiful young wife, Rebecca, and then took his own life. Their intermingled blood soaked the wood, permanently discoloring it. Think of the tremendous amount of blood there must have been!
“But the deaths of Augustine and Rebecca Chastaine weren’t the start of the famous Cottoncrest curse. And they weren’t the end of it, either.”
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The Cottoncrest Curse may also be purchased at the following local booksellers:
Cottonwood Books
3054 Perkins Road
Baton Rouge, La. 70808
Ph: 225-343-1266
Visit Website
Conundrum Books
11917 Ferdinand St
St. Francisville, LA 70775
Ph: 225-245-5025
Visit Website
Octavia Books
513 Octavia Street
New Orleans, LA 70115
Visit Website
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Cashed Out
Holding $4 million in cash, given to you by your murdered client, makes you everyone’s target.
One failed marriage. Two jobs lost. Three maxed out credit cards. “Schex” Schexnaydre was a failure as a lawyer. Until three weeks ago, he had no clients and no cash. Well, no clients except for infamous toxic waste entrepreneur G.G. Guidry, who’s just been murdered. And no cash, except for the $4,452,737 Guidry had stashed with him for safekeeping.
When Schex’s estranged ex-wife, Taylor, is accused of Guidry’s murder, she pleads with Schex to defend her. He refuses, but the more he says no to Taylor, the deeper Schex gets dragged into the fall-out from Guidry’s nefarious schemes, ending up as the target of all those vying to claim Guidry’s millions for themselves.
Schex careens from the swamps and marshes of Louisiana’s chemical corridor to the deep water oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, from the river industries that pollute minority neighborhoods to the privileged playgrounds of New Orleans’ crime syndicate bosses, and from a notorious alligator processing plant to the halls of political power, all in an attempt to clear his name and claim Guidry’s cash for himself.
“If you like John Grisham and Michael Connelly’s Lincoln Lawyer, you’re gonna love ‘Schex’ Schexnaydre – a down-and-out-attorney who breaks all the rules looking for some kind of justice. Fast, funny, and filled with twists and edge-of-your-seat suspense. Michael H. Rubin really nails it!
– – R.G. Belsky, author of the Gil Malloy mystery series
Cashed Out features “a lawyer down and out enough to make John Grisham proud. He’s culled from the likes of Michael Connolly by way of James Lee Burke. A gem of a tale.”
– – Providence Journal
“Cash in on this thrilling read from Michael H. Rubin. Set in the sweltering heat of the Louisiana bayou, Cashed Out is enthralling.”
– – Foreword Reviews
“Michael Rubin’s Cashed Out is a dark and gritty crime novel that is packed with plenty of suspense and enough turns to keep readers entertained from start to finish. Rubin slowly unveils one surprise after another on the way to a nail-biting final act that fans of Joseph Finder and Michael Connelly will appreciate.”
– – Book Spy Reviews
“Michael H. Rubin catapults his main character, Schex Schexnaydre, into impossible situations, and the tension never lets up. Schex finds himself engulfed in a series of seemingly inescapable physical and mental traps. And then . . . neither our hero nor the reader has a way out of the growing, chilling suspense until the surprising conclusion.
— Steven W. Kohlhagen, author of “Where They Bury You” and “The Point of a Gun”
Michael H. Rubin’s new legal thriller is filled with great local color, entertaining characters, and plenty of action. CASHED OUT goes beyond the typical setting and deeper into Louisiana in a way that makes the reader feel she’s being pushed down the bayou at breakneck speed. It’s fresh, exciting, and well paced. I’ll be watching for the next in the series for sure. Five Stars!
— Manning Wolf, author of the thriller, “Dollar Signs.”
Chapter 1
Failed lawyer? Damn right I’m a failed lawyer. Got a failed marriage, three maxed-out credit cards, and a broken-down office with a mortgage that’s underwater.
Until three weeks ago, I had no clients and no money.
Well, no clients except for G.G. Guidry, and he’s just been murdered. And no money, except for the $4,452,737 in cash that G.G. had left with me for safekeeping.
G.G. Guidry hired me on a Sunday morning. Less than a hundred hours later he was dead. His body was found on the industrial plant site of toxic waste processor Camellia Industries, floating in one of the “holding ponds” in a scummy mixture of petroleum waste, drilling fluid, arsenic, lead, barium, chromium, manganese, mercury, and who knows what-all.
The police initially thought that G.G. had been overcome by fumes and had fallen in. But when they pulled his body out, the cause of death was clear. G.G. had been shot three times. Once in the stomach. Once in the chest. And once in the forehead.
He was dead before someone dumped him in all that muck.
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The award recognizes the outstanding novel of the year whose “characters are vividly portrayed as those individuals who can exist side-by-side with someone living in this world now, and dealing with issues of today in dramatic fashion,” in a “the setting that must be excruciatingly real.”
Cashed Out may also be purchased at the following local booksellers:
Cottonwood Books
3054 Perkins Road
Baton Rouge, La. 70808
Ph: 225-343-1266
Visit Website
Conundrum Books
11917 Ferdinand St
St. Francisville, LA 70775
Ph: 225-245-5025
Visit Website
Octavia Books
513 Octavia Street
New Orleans, LA 70115
Visit Website
IndieBound
A community of Independent Local Bookstores
Visit Book Page
Excerpt from Cashed Out
A White Hot Plan
A group of alt-right terrorists decides that now is the time—and New Orleans is the place—to make an explosive statement that will force the world to acknowledge the superiority of the white supremacist movement.
Disgraced former New Orleans homicide detective Starner Gautreaux is now a poorly-paid rural sheriff’s deputy relegated to writing his weekly quota of speeding tickets in a sleepy South Louisiana parish. His mundane life is tedious and all too predictable until several unusual events occur that cause him to suspect something is seriously amiss. While the local coroner classifies the resulting deaths as accidental, Starner’s prior experience leads him to believe that not only are they homicides, but also that they signal something far more sinister.
Taut action bubbles up from the swamps of Louisiana to the hidden haunts of underworld bosses, from small-town life to urban grit, and from a high-speed highway shootout to a terrifying confrontation in the heart of the French Quarter. White supremacists seek to impose their will on a city swamped with carefree tourists, but Starner Gautreaux is determined not to let that happen.
“With its terrifying and all-too-real plot involving white supremacists bent on annihilating the diverse city of New Orleans, A White Hot Plan is a gripping, propulsive thriller I couldn’t put down.”
—Ellen Byron, USA Today bestselling author
“Sure-handed writing, an exotic setting, and a fascinating cast of characters all come together like a slipknot in this tightly-plotted contemporary thriller. A White Hot Plan is a lightning-paced hardboiled winner!”
—Baron Birtcher, LA Times bestselling author of Reckoning
“Taut, twisty, thrilling story of a nightmarish plot to blow up New Orleans—and a disgraced cop racing against time and his own troubled past to stop it. A school bus filled with innocent children and high explosives; a white supremacist militia terror group looking to make the ultimate violent political statement; corrupt cops and public officials . . . Mike and Ayan Rubin burn up the pages with this riveting tale from the dark underbelly of the Bayou. What a helluva read!”
—R. G. Belsky, author of the award-winning Clare Carlson series
“Mike and Ayan Rubin have crafted a delicious Faulkner-esque novel. Protagonist Starner Gautreaux is well-crafted with enduring traits and skills. A White Hot Plan is storytelling at its finest. The novel captures the spirit of the South with genuine characters oozing with skills, flaws, and personalities that evoke an entertaining spectrum of human emotions. An exciting, breathtaking ride of a story.”
—Wayne Avrashow, Esq., author of Center Stage: A Political Thriller, Amazon bestseller
“A White Hot Plan is an expertly written thriller that moves with blistering speed across south Louisiana, where a dangerous, ugly secret lurks within the haunting natural beauty. When Sheriff’s Deputy Starner Gautreaux can no longer ignore the corruption around him, or the damage his years of turning a blind eye has caused to his self-respect, he learns that redemption might cost him everything—including his life—as he races to thwart the apocalyptic scheme of a band of militant racists.”
—Roger Johns, 2018 Georgia Author of the Year (Detective-Mystery Category), and author of the Wallace Hartman mysteries
“A White Hot Plan is like a thrilling airboat ride through the bayou filled with a spicy cast of characters blended like a delicious gumbo.”
—Mike Roche, author of the Detective Kate Alexander crime novels
The soft buzz of cicadas rose from the alligator weed and button-willow that edged the bayou next to the swamp. As a quarter moon shimmered intermittently behind clouds blotching the night sky, the Precept carefully worked his way around the faded yellow school bus that had been backed into the gravel driveway, primed for the next day’s run. Although it was dark, he could discern the dim outlines of two derelict cars perched on cinder blocks, several rusty washing machines, and what appeared to be a disassembled refrigerator.
The ramshackle cottage was just ahead. Looming branches of oak and hickory pressed against its roof.
He adjusted the strap on his shoulder, pulled on latex gloves, and started to expertly pick the lock on the mildewed front door. It was not fastened and squeaked open even as he touched it.
An ancient air conditioner wheezed loudly from its perch in the window of the bedroom off the front hall. A television flickered, blaring a canned laugh track that punctuated every other line of an old sitcom, but the snoring of the enormous woman on the bed cut through the din.
Sprawled across the flowered coverlet, in a faded night shirt that bunched up around her layers of fat, Boulette Babineaux looked far older than her sixty-plus years.
The Precept pulled a small tank from his backpack, turned the valve, and pressed the plastic face-cup tightly over her nose and mouth. As Boulette struggled into wakefulness, he put his other hand behind her tangle of grey hair and pulled her head forward, forcing her to inhale the fumes.
Boulette’s eyes opened. They were filled with confusion. Then puzzlement. Then panic. She began to writhe and kick.
The Precept’s grasp on her head was firm. The gas flowed into her mouth as she tried to scream.
Boulette struggled, but he easily eluded her flailing arms, keeping the plastic mask affixed to the lower half of her face.
Thirty seconds passed. She began to take short, frantic gasps. Gulping for air caused her to inhale the chemical mixture even more deeply.
Finally, there was no movement at all.
The Precept remained in position for another minute, just to be sure.
He turned the valve off, checked the veins in her neck for signs of life, and, finding none, carefully stowed his gear. They would find her eventually, of course. An autopsy would indicate that Boulette had suffered a heart attack. The obvious conclusion would be that natural causes finally did in this old, overweight black woman with numerous health problems.
Holding the tank, the Precept headed back through the living room towards the front door when he heard the sound of a vehicle pulling up. A car door squeaked open and then slammed shut. The dusty living room curtains, drooping from their warped wooden dowels, glowed yellow as headlights splashed the front porch.
He stepped back into the shadows and reached for his knife.
The front door burst open. The home’s entryway was now blocked by a massive figure, at least six foot five and as wide as the doorframe. The big man flipped on the light switch and, seeing the stranger in the corner, lunged for him.
A White Hot Plan may also be purchased at the following local booksellers:
Cottonwood Books
3054 Perkins Road
Baton Rouge, La. 70808
Ph: 225-343-1266
Visit Website
Conundrum Books
11917 Ferdinand St
St. Francisville, LA 70775
Ph: 225-245-5025
Visit Website
Octavia Books
513 Octavia Street
New Orleans, LA 70115
Visit Website
IndieBound
A community of Independent Local Bookstores
Visit Book Page
JUSTIFICATION
IN DEVELOPMENT
From the manuscript of Mike Rubin’s fourth novel.
If you know too many secrets and tell too many lies, you’ll never be safe.
It’s the summer of 1915, the year before America enters WWI and the last gasp of Storyville, the infamous New Orleans neighborhood that is home to legalized brothels, deliciously subversive music, and even more deliciously seductive women. The Lusitania has been sunk and German saboteurs are suspected of placing bombs on merchant ships bound for Europe bearing arms and equipment to supply British and French forces.
Eighteen year old Ash Harris comes to the Crescent City to spend the summer working in his uncle’s chandlery shop. Because his headstrong actions almost destroy his uncle’s business, he is disowned, forced to disguise his identity, and is reduced to being a roustabout on the dangerous New Orleans docks, where men labor at a breakneck pace in confined spaces, tempers flare, alliances shift, and ethnic tensions are in constant flux.
Ash joins the Wobblies (a labor union despised by the dock owners) because he is entranced with their young, female organizer. He is enticed by the government into spying on potential German boat-bombing terrorists and allows himself to be inducted into a violent white supremacist group so that he can continue his work as an undercover operative on the docks.
Ash is thrust into a life of constant deceit and violence. But Ash’s secrets and lies eventually catch up to him. A lynching, a murder, a betrayal, and more await Ash, necessitating his escape from New Orleans. He embarks on a desperate and dangerous journey in search of a safe haven.
COMING SOON!
Reviews will be posted as soon as they are available.
EXCERPT FROM JUSTIFICATION
In the summer of 1915, the Vieux Carré was not the upscale tourist destination that it is today, filled with restaurants, hotels, bars, and stores bursting with Mardi Gras memorabilia, masks, t-shirts, and trinkets. In the 1890s, the French who lived there began upgrading to posher surroundings, and by the summer of 1915, the French Quarter was run down to the point of squalor. Animals were foraging in its trash-filled streets. Many buildings were near the point of collapse. The wrought-iron galleries, from which hung dead plants and wet laundry, projected precariously over broken sidewalks.
It was into this district that my cigar-smoking companion led me.
“Ash Harris,” he said, as he kicked aside a mangy dog that kept nipping at his heals, “I’ve been keeping an eye on you for some time now.”
“You’ve been spying on me?”
“Spying? An interesting choice of words. Let us say that I am a careful observer of people and places.”
He was being deliberately evasive, and I was having none of it. “And do you, as a ‘careful observer’ who seems know all about me, have a name?”
“What name would you like? My dock name? My nom de plume?”
Cognizant of the muscles my dock work had developed and the strength I had, I yanked him up by the collar and slammed him against the side of a building, my fist poised a few inches from his nose.
“Your real name! Who are you? And why have you been trailing me?”
I was taller than he was. I was also bigger, younger, and, I was certain, stronger. I had him pinned, and I was determined to extract the information I wanted.
I was certain I had scared him and that he would tell me everything I wanted to know. But he didn’t seem frightened at all. Didn’t seem the least bit concerned. Didn’t even seem angry. Suddenly, clasping his hands together, he thrust his arms inside mine, pushing them apart and landing a solid blow on my chin while at the same time wrapping his right leg behind mine. He flipped me over backwards into the street and, as I lay in the muck, his boot directly over my windpipe, the mud dripping off his heels onto my cheeks, he said calmly, “You have a lot to learn.”
He slowly lifted his foot away from my face, stood to one side, and held out his hand to help me up.
Warily, I took it.
“You want to know who I am? I’ll gladly tell you, but first let me ask you a few questions.”
I shook my head no. I was not about to respond to any of his queries until I got some answers of my own.
He pushed me into a dark alley. “You can simply say yes or no. But believe me, once we go through this process, which won’t take but a minute, everything will make more sense . . .” His tone was surprisingly pleasant and somehow reassuring, even as he finished with “. . . or would you like to go another round and end up back in the street, this time face down?”
I waited, looking for an escape path, but he stood between me and the alley’s entrance. High brick walls loomed up on both sides of the narrow passage, and behind us was yet another wall. There was no way out except through him.
“Have you been reading the newspapers? Spent any time finding out what is happening in this country or overseas?”
I hadn’t cared a whit about that. My entire focus had been on earning what little money I could working on the docks. I shook my head no.
“See how easy that was? Let me tell you, then, what you have chosen to ignore. The war in Europe is heating up. A dark curtain of despair is encircling England, France, and Belgium.
I shrugged my shoulders. None of that was important to me.
“You think you are unaffected by what happens overseas? Fires and explosions are occurring on ships bound for Europe, vessels bearing arms and supplies for the English and French to fight the Axis alliance.”
I didn’t like the way he was lecturing me and certainly didn’t know what any of this had to do with me. I clenched my fists at my side. If I had to fight my way out of this alley, I would. “Enough! I answered your questions. You said you would tell me who you are. Well, who the hell are you?”
“I’ll get to that in just a moment. Are you aware that . . . .”
I was fed up. I came at him with both fists swinging. I intended to finish him off easily, with a powerful left to his gut followed by an upper right to his jaw. I would knock him down and be on my way.
But I couldn’t lay a knuckle on him. Try as I might, all I could do was whip the air. He ducked. He swayed. He moved backwards, sideways, and forwards with a rapidity I had never seen, eluding every punch I tried to throw. Then, he kicked me! What kind of fighter was he? His leg extended at what I swear was a right-angle and hit me squarely in the solar plexus. Down I went, gasping for breath as he once again positioned his boot above my windpipe.
“Patience. I can tell from your attitude that you care nothing about the European conflict or how it is affecting this country. But you should. The flames of war are spreading this way across the ocean. We have ‘helpers’ who identify potential talent for our efforts. That’s how we learned about you. You may think it a shame and embarrassment that your uncle fired you and that you’ve been reduced to performing manual labor on the docks, but that’s what makes you even more valuable to me.
“I need someone smart and wily, who speaks German and is able to move throughout the docks of New Orleans without raising suspicion. I need you. Your country needs you. And I assure you that the recompense will be well worth your while.”
The Crescent City Killer
IN DEVELOPMENT
From the manuscript of Mike Rubin’s fourth novel.
Mardi Gras madness. Mutilated prostitutes. Crooked cops. Corporate corruption. Courtroom chicanery. Big oil. Big deals. Big problems. Just another series of strange coincidences cascading through the boardrooms and bedrooms of sultry New Orleans . . . or not?
Shanita Banner, a black female detective on the New Orleans police force, is sure that a serial killer is preying on prostitutes in the downtrodden Achilles Street Projects, but she can’t get her superiors to take her suspicions seriously. Amy Carey, a young associate in the Crescent City’s biggest law firm, refuses the advances of the senior partner’s favorite lawyer, Drey Soileau, a top-notch litigator and a first class womanizer. But after the body of Drey’s former girlfriend, the Vice President of the firm’s largest client, is found murdered in the same manner as the prostitutes, Drey becomes the key suspect. When Drey disappears, all the while declaring his innocence, Shanita and Amy join forces to ensnare him. Meanwhile, Mardi Gras has started, the biggest parades are rolling, and the truth is out there somewhere.
COMING SOON!
Reviews will be posted as soon as they are available.
Chapter 1
Patrolman Joey Raguso steered the police cruiser into one of the many cul-de-sacs that made the Achilles Housing Projects in New Orleans so dangerous. His partner, Mac McHaver, kept a wary eye on the crowd, which dispersed as the flashing blue lights and screaming siren approached. Shadowy figures scattered, disappearing into the neighborhood of ill-kept structures, splintered siding, and shattered lives.
By the time Detective Shanita Banner had arrived in her unmarked car, the two patrolmen had secured the crime scene.
The doorframe of the first-floor apartment was missing. The entrance was a gaping hole leading into a husk of a building. Whatever human life it once possessed had long since vanished, replaced by tendrils of weeds groping the rotting wood siding.
“Joey’s in there with the d.c.” said Mac to Shanita. “I’ve called the coroner’s office but, as usual, there’re working several other scenes and are tied up. Unit One is over in the Irish Channel where some guy got popped. Number Two is on a domestic off of Claiborne. Some bitch shot her old man when he gave her a slap or two. TV reporters are already on site at that one. So, the coroner’s folks may not be here for a couple of hours or more. And, after we called in ours, two more shootings came in: one in Mid-City and one out in New Orleans East.”
Shanita Banner didn’t say anything. Five deaths in one night. A typical evening in a city that slithered beneath its tourist veneer.
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A nationally known legal ethicist, public speaker and humorist, as well as a full time appellate attorney,
Mike has had a varied career.
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