Jazz Plays the Big Easy Blues — Joel B. Reed

New Orleans. They call it the City Care Forgot and Jazz Phillips is there to enjoy it. He's in town to teach a police seminar, but the nights are his. He intends to make the most of them, sampling good food, enjoying the sights, and listening to smooth jazz. The police chief has a different agenda. He asks Jazz to look over some cold cases two of his best people are concerned about. When he does, Jazz becomes convinced that a serial killer is at work in New Orleans. Nor is this a common serial. It is one familiar with the way police think and who hides his presence by changing methods. Then the killer strikes again. The victim is a heavy hitter in the city, with close ties to the chief. Jazz is hired as a consultant. Yet, the deeper the team digs, the more confusing the case becomes as the killer strikes again and again. Similar cases turn up in Little Rock and Memphis. Just when Team Jazz is close to solving the case, the killer picks the wrong victim. He ends up dead in the street and the evidence the team finds is conclusive. Yet, the killer is another heavy hitter close to the chief, who refuses to accept the team's final report. Fed up with the Big Easy, Jazz files his final report and heads for home. Yet, in the end, he finds a strange and unsettling vindication.