Hurricane: A Novel

In the stunning conclusion to award-winning author Jewell Parker Rhodes’s mystery trilogy begun in Voodoo Dreams and Moon, Dr. Marie Lavant, descendent of Voodoo queen Marie Laveau, must confront a murderous evil in New Orleans.Dr. Marie Levant aka Leveau, great-great granddaughter of Marie Laveau, has achieved fame and notoriety for saving New Orleans from the wrath of a vampire. Now she’s taking a break from the city, heading up the highway to DeLaire. She doesn’t know this backwater town, but an elderly woman called Nana has been expecting Marie to arrive and save her and others in this God-forsaken place from sickness and death.Yet all of Marie’s powers can’t bring life back to the corpses she finds in a house by the road. Nor can she force those who know how they died to say so or to confess. Were the crimes committed by shape-shifters, vampires, and ghosts—or by living men and women? And even as Marie searches for answers, a hurricane threatens to break the levees of Louisiana and cause unimaginable destruction.Jewell Parker Rhodes blends magic and man-made evil and weaves New Orleans’s past and present into a spine-tingling mystery that is masterfully crafted and deeply haunting.

From Publishers Weekly

In the third volume of Rhodes's voodoo-inspired series (after 2009's Moon), an environmental disaster brews in New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina threatens. Dr. Marie Laveau, a descendant (and perhaps reincarnation) of the legendary voodoo queen, awakens from a nightmare, goes for a drive to clear her head, and finds a crime scene: John and Mimi L'Overture and their baby have been shot and killed in the village of DeLaire. She reports the murder to brothers Deet and Aaron Malveaux, respectively deputy and sheriff of DeLaire, and meets their ailing Nana, a voodooienne who's foreseen Marie's arrival. When Marie returns to work, a bullet meant for her kills one of her colleagues, so Marie returns to DeLaire to catch the killer and explore the next stage of her spellbinding destiny. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Rhodes told the potent story of Marie Laveau, the nineteenth-century voodoo queen of New Orleans, in a historical novel, Voodoo Dreams (1993). She then switched to crime fiction (Voodoo Season, 2005; Yellow Moon, 2008) to portray Laveau�s descendent and namesake, a �voodooiene� and tough New Orleans ER doctor. In the third installment, a nightmarish vision impels Marie to head to bayou country, where she discovers a triple murder, a dying voodoo healer, and a creepy enclave of the walking ill. An intrepid �detective of two worlds�one tangible, the other intangible,� Marie has coalesced into the sort of smart, tough, and cranky sleuth to whom mystery readers become devoted. As Marie tangles with adversaries both human and spiritual, Rhodes unspools a hair-raising tale that entwines medicine, shamanism, corporate crime, family ties, and our troubled relationship with nature. With a gripping and provocative plot about the dark side of healing and the environmental devastation of Louisiana�s essential delta wetlands, Rhodes has fashioned a mystery with great reach and impact. One unanswered question remains: Will we see more of Dr. Marie Laveau? --Donna Seaman

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

NEW ORLEANSNIGHT TERRORS Bodies were everywhere—limp, bloated, tangled in bushes, trees, floating in water. Men, women, and children bobbed in the muddy current, interspersed with upside-down Chevys, shredded trees, snapped power lines, and mangled street signs. Rain added to the river’s rise. Hot, humid rain. Rain that tasted metallic and fell, like blades, pricking skin. Marie was dry, parched. Awake inside her dream. For weeks, she’d been having the same dream; she’d been trying to interpret it, break the horrific spell. “Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink.” The phrase kept rewinding in her mind. Coleridge. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. “Not a drop to drink.” Just dead, infested waters. She moaned. Her legs were tangled in the sheets; sweat blanketed her skin. She dove back down into her dream, through layers of thought, anxiety, and consciousness. Inhale, exhale. Breathe. The river was widening, swallowing, then spitting up more bodies. The Guédé, the death gods, in top hat and tails, were standing on a bridge, pointing at the dead. No—at something else. Something within the water. “Let me see,” she murmured. “Let me see.” The Guédé heard her. In unison, they shook their skull heads and pressed their white-gloved hands across their hollow eyes. “Show me,” she demanded. “I am Marie.” The Guédé opened their mouths. They didn’t make sound, rather, Marie felt their howling—an obscene absence of sound that terrorized, rattling her bones. Both inside and outside her dream, Marie wanted to run, hide, burrow into a hole so deep, no one—tangible or intangible—could ever touch her. Each night, this was when and where her dream ended—the Guédé howling, refusing to look deeper into the water. If the Guédé were afraid to look, why should she? Her body constricted; her respiration quickened; her legs grew rigid, tight. She rasped, “Let me see. I am Marie. I need to see.” She fell, hard, fast. Screaming, she clawed at the sheets. Her body jerked; the freefall stopped. Parallel, weightless, she floated inches above the river water. She recoiled. Bodies bobbed so close she could touch them: a woman, her lips locked in a grimace, her arms flung over her head; a blue baby, covered in algae like a desolate infant Moses; and a man, twisted onto his side, insects burrowing into his exposed cheek and nostril. Snakes greased through brown water. A baby crocodile perched on a dead body like a log. She smelled waste—human and inhuman. She smelled decomposing rot and withered leaves. In the polluted waters, there were layers of deepening darkness, darker than mud, darker than earth. Darker than any sin. She heard: “Rise.” It wasn’t the Guédé—but the other spirit, the one, camouflaged, deep inside the water. She saw an outline—a face, human?—ascending. Then, it stopped; the spirit still cradled by deep waters. “Rise.” Streams of white smoke rose from the dead, billowing like foam waves in the sky. “Rise.” The dead were transformed into flying birds. Blackbirds. Thousands of blackbirds were flying south, escaping, soaring above the landscape, above cities, parishes, levees, and marshes. Flying toward a horizon split with orange, red, purple, and gold. Flying toward the river’s mouth. “Mama!” The scream pierced sleep. “Mama.” Marie jolted awake, stumbling out of bed, running. “Marie-Claire? Marie-Claire, I’m coming. Mama’s coming.” The blue revolving lamp had stopped, its silhouettes of birds were dim and static on the ceiling and bedroom walls. The night-light, in the wall outlet, flickered, its power waning. Marie-Claire lay facedown on the pillow. “Baby.” Fearfully, gently, she turned Marie-Claire over. Marie-Claire was asleep; her lids closed tight, her eyelashes fanning long, delicately. She was hot, her face flushed, her brown curls matted on her brow and neck. But no fever. She was asleep. Wind lifted the bedroom curtains like birds’ wings. Marie trembled with relief. “Women hand sight down through the generations. Mother to daughter.” She and Marie-Claire were bound by tragedy, bound by love and blood. They were imbued with sight, spiritual gifts carried from Africa into the New World, through Marie Laveau, New Orleans’s famed, nineteenth-century Voodoo Queen. Maybe Marie-Claire, too, had been awake inside some dream? Maybe she was still dreaming? Marie prayed her daughter’s dreams were sweet. No bloated bodies. Only rainbows, magnolias, and friends at play. “Marie-Claire,” she whispered, gently shaking her. Marie-Claire’s eyes fluttered, her breath smelled like almonds. “Mama, go bye? Go bye-bye.” “Marie-Claire?” She held her daughter’s limp hand. “Bye, Mama. Bye-bye.” Still slumbering, Marie-Claire turned, onto her side, her tiny fists curled beneath her chin. Marie kissed the tip of her nose, then quickly turned, sensing a presence. Baron Samedi, the Guédé leader, was solemn, all skeleton and shadow. Cocking his head, he pointed a gloved finger at the night-light. It glowed, strong and bright, like a lighthouse guiding lost sailors home. He touched the lamp. The birds continued their kaleidoscopic flight across the ceiling and walls. Then, Samedi waved his hand. “South. Birds flying south,” she whispered. In the Sleeping Beauties case, she’d learned the Guédé despised those who interfered with death. She learned, too, that if the Guédé refused to dig your grave, you wouldn’t die. Asleep and awake, the Guédé were guiding her. “You coming?” she asked the baron softly. Baron Samedi tipped his hat and shook his head. He sat on the bed, then leaned forward, his gloved fingers stroking Marie-Claire’s hair. The hair on her skin rose. From her medical training, she knew it was a chemical reaction spurred by fear, the fight or flight response. Adrenaline was raising her blood pressure, making her heart beat faster. It was startling to see Death touching Marie-Claire. Baron Samedi smiled, a grimace of a skeletal jaw, lost and rotten teeth. “You won’t hurt her.” It was a statement, not a question. The Guédé were encouraging her to follow her dream to its source. “You don’t do oatmeal, do you?” Samedi sat, cross-legged, at the foot of the bed. Marie smiled. What better babysitter than Death itself? She suddenly wanted to wake Marie-Claire. To see her smile and see herself reflected in her daughter’s eyes. She bent, pressing her lips against Marie-Claire’s cheek, inhaling her sweet scent. “Thank you, Baron. I’m grateful.” Samedi kept mute. Marie walked quickly out of the room. She needed to call the hospital, rearrange her shifts. She needed to call the sitter, Louise. She’d take care of Marie-Claire’s temporal needs: fix her food, keep her warm, and read her a story. Without question, Marie-Claire would be safe. Baron Samedi himself would refuse to ferry her to the afterlife, the other world. Marie let her drawstring pajama pants fall to the floor. She slipped on underwear, jeans, and buttoned a black shirt over her cotton tee. She pitched extra panties, shirts, a comb, and a toothbrush into an overnight bag. What did it mean? Any of it? The Guédé were telling her that the bodies in the river were only part of a mystery she needed to solve—there was still more to discover, more to dream. She’d drive south. And pray she’d stay alive, her spirit whole. She saw herself reflected in the mirror: thick brown hair pulled back in a ponytail; lean rather than voluptuous; bags beneath her eyes from working too hard as a mother, a doctor. If the Guédé were here, her daughter was at risk. The balance between life and death was unsettled, unraveling. Her life’s calling was to heal—and her dream, even though it didn’t make any sense, was, somehow, a call for her skills. She snapped her overnight bag shut. The river’s mouth, the river’s mouth. There was only one place in Louisiana to go—the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf was where the Mississippi drained. South. Drive south. © 2011 Jewell Parker Rhodes

About the Author

Jewell Parker Rhodes is an award-winning author of fiction and nonfiction, including the Marie Laveau mystery series, Magic City, and Douglass' Women. She is also the author of numerous children's books, including the New York Times bestseller Ghost Boys and Black Brother, Black Brother. She is the Virginia G. Piper Chair in Creative Writing and artistic director of the Virginia G. Piper Center in Creative Writing at Arizona State University. She lives in Scottsdale, Arizona.

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