Crooked Man, Tubby Dubonnet Mystery #1

A simple man with a refined palate, maverick New Orleans lawyer Tubby Dubonnet is a master at juggling the seemingly disparate aspects of his frequently hectic life. His clients are all renegades from the asylum, including a transvestite entertainer with a troublesome skin condition, a buxom blonde with a penchant for not paying her bills, a doctor who refers his own patients to a malpractice lawyer, and the driver of a Mardi Gras float shaped like a giant crawfish pot. His personal life might not make Oprah, but he has his hands full with an ex-wife and three teenage daughters, who are experts in the art of wrapping Tubby around their little fingers. And somehow, between work and family, Tubby finds time to sample the highs and lows of Crescent City cuisine, from trout meuniere amandine and French roast coffee with chicory to shrimp po-boys and homemade pecan pralines. Then Tubby's law partner, Reggie Turntide, asks him to take on a new client: Darryl Alvarez, the manager of a local nightclub who has been caught unloading fifteen bales of marijuana from a shrimp boat. At their first meeting, Darryl entrusts Tubby with an ordinary-looking blue gym bag. But when Darryl is later found shot at the nightclub, Tubby realizes he must tighten his grasp on the gym bag - and its million-dollar contents. Forced to choose between keeping the cash for himself or turning it over to the most eligible and persuasive claimant, Tubby makes a decision that changes his life, and more.