{"id":7925,"date":"2019-05-06T06:06:33","date_gmt":"2019-05-06T10:06:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7925"},"modified":"2019-05-06T06:06:42","modified_gmt":"2019-05-06T10:06:42","slug":"paid-in-spades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7925","title":{"rendered":"****Paid in Spades"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Richard Helms \u2013 In this fast-paced crime thriller,\naward-winning author Richard Helms guides you to the darker corners of New\nOrleans, where at any moment the extravagant pleasures of the food, the\nculture, and the music can turn deadly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pat Gallegher makes just enough money to get by, playing his\ncornet in Holliday\u2019s, a seedy French Quarter watering hole. A gambling\naddiction caused many of his more recent troubles, but a twelve-step program\nhas helped him reclaim some normalcy, if you can call it that: \u201cOne thing about\nbeing in a recovery program, you meet the most interesting people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of those interesting people is Cabby Jacks, who got him\nstarted in Gamblers Anonymous and insisted he take it seriously. Now Gallegher\nbelieves part of his recovery depends on righting the balance in his life by\ndoing what he terms \u201cfavors.\u201d He has a particular skill in finding people and\nthings that are lost. One of those people is Cabby Jacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

History is responsible for Gallegher\u2019s rocky relationships\nwith the cops. But those are balanced by excellent interactions with his woman\nfriend, Merlie, with the bar\u2019s owner, Shorty, and with the other musicians. The\ndialog in Gallegher\u2019s interactions with friend and foe is full of sly humor,\nnot always appreciated, but sparkling throughout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Merlie also needs a favor. She runs a shelter for teenage \u201crunaways,\nthrowaways, and other destitute children.\u201d One of her charges needs surgery,\nbut the dad needs to sign the consent and no one can find him. Another job for\nGallegher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Helms builds the tension nicely when tracking down the\nfather leads Gallegher into the swampy wilderness where an oil pipeline is\nbeing laid. The hunt for Cabby leads him to a ship docked at the port of New\nOrleans and unexpected exposure to ultra-violent Brazilian gangs trying for a\ntoe-hold in Louisiana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gallegher is not a lone actor here. He gets help from a\nformer Secret Service man and calls on his long-time acquaintance Scat Boudreaux,\nwhom Gallegher believes may be \u201cthe most dangerous man in America.\u201d The real\ndark horse of the piece is a young guitarist who understands more about\nsurveillance and guns than any young musician ought to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author Helms has a knack for making all these people vivid and interesting. I could read a whole novel about any of them. The plot edges close to spiraling into unbelievability near the end, but the strength of the writing and the characters keeps it together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo: David Ohmer, Creative Commons license<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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By Richard Helms \u2013 In this fast-paced crime thriller, award-winning author Richard Helms guides you to the darker corners of New Orleans, where at any moment the extravagant pleasures of the food, the culture, and the music can turn deadly. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4550,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"****Paid in Spades - Entertaining new crime novel featuring cornet-playing, muffaletta-loving investigator Pat Gallegher.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[52,54,126],"tags":[382],"class_list":["post-7925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime","category-detective","category-reading-2","tag-new-orleans"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/1325386316_cdf7b4190a_z.jpg?fit=418%2C640&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-23P","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7925"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7927,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7925\/revisions\/7927"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}