The Big Show [Mass Market Paperback]

O'Neil De Noux (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0965314588 | ISBN-13: 978-0965314589 | Publication Date: March 1998

The fifth in the series of DeNoux's acclaimed Dino LaStanza murder mystery series, "The Big Show" follows LaStanza -- a top New Orleans homicide detective -- in his latest case, involving a man horribly burned, a white supremicist leader who may have been involved in the crime, and a parallel case of the Pantyhose Rapist. Fast-paced, realistic, raw and often funny inside look at the day-to-day workings of police in the line of fire.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Pontalba Pr (March 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0965314588
• ISBN-13: 978-0965314589
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,597,522 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

O'Neil De Noux
brief bio

Born in New Orleans, O'Neil De Noux is a prolific American writer of novels and short stories. Although much of De Noux's fiction falls under the mystery genre (character-drive crime fiction primarily), he has published stories in many disciplines including historical fiction, children's fiction, mainstream fiction, science-fiction, suspense, fantasy, horror, western, literary, religious, romance, humor and erotica.

At the World Mystery Convention in 2007, The Private Eye Writers of America awarded its prestigious Shamus Award for BEST SHORT STORY to "The Heart Has Reasons" by O'Neil De Noux (the cover story of the September 2006 Issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine). The Shamus Award is given annually recognize outstanding achievement in private eye fiction. "The Heart Has Reasons" features De Noux's private eye Lucien Caye. De Noux is also the 2009 Derringer Award winner for BEST NOVELETTE (stories between 8,001 and 17,500 words) for "Too Wise" - another Lucien Caye private eye mystery. The Derringer Awards are given annually by the Short Mystery Fiction Society to recognize excellence in the short mystery fiction form. Another De Noux story, "The Bonnie and Clyde Caper" featuring New Orleans Police Homicide Detective John Raven Beau was runner up in the Derringer Best Long Story category.

In 2009, De Noux tapped his history background to pen a 320,000 word historical epic set during The Battle of New Orleans and received an Artist Services Career Advancement Award for 2009-2010 from the Louisiana Division of the Arts for his work on this upcoming book - BATTLE KISS.

Recognizing the future of publishing, De Noux made a move to eBooks and print-on-demand books in 2010, teaming with other artists in the art co-op Big Kiss Productions. Slick Time, a sexy caper novel, was published by Big Kiss Productions via amazon.com (CreateSpace print-on-demand and KINDLE). New Orleans Nocturnal is a collection of nine crime stories featuring John Raven Beau. Big Kiss Productions released the second edition of New Orleans Confidential, adding the two award-winning private-eye stories, "The Heart Has Reasons" and "Too Wise." Additionally, De Noux began selling previously published and unpublished short stories on Amazon KINDLE directly to the public as eBooks via his web site - http://www.oneildenoux.net

Also in 2010, De Noux's long-awaited erotic-thriller, Mafia Aphrodite, was published by British publisher Xcite Books.

In March 2011, the novel John Raven Beau was published by Big Kiss Productions. A hyper-realistic crime story, John Raven Beau provides an intimate look into the beleaguered NOPD Homicide Division, a story that begins in the French Quarter and ends in a swamp, all within the city limits of America's eternal city, a city that cannot be destroyed - New Orleans. Also in 2011, the short story collection New Orleans Prime Evil (ten historical mysteries) was published.

Bibliography
Novels
* Grim Reaper (Zebra Books, 1988)
* The Big Kiss (Zebra Books, 1990)
* Blue Orleans (Zebra Books, 1991)
* Crescent City Kills (Zebra Books, 1992)
* The Big Show (Pontabla Press, 1998)
* Mafia Aphrodite (Xcite Books, 2010)
* Slick Time (Big Kiss Productions, 2010)
* John Raven Beau (Big Kiss Productions, 2011)
* BATTLE KISS (Big Kiss Productions, 2011)
Short Story Collections
* LaStanza: New Orleans Police Stories (Pontabla Press, 1999)
* Hollow Point & The Mystery of Rochelle Marais (Gryphon Books, 2000)
* New Orleans Irresistible (EAA Signature Series Books, 2006)
* New Orleans Mysteries (Big Kiss Productions, 2009)
* New Orleans Confidential (Big Kiss Productions, 2010)
* New Orleans Nocturnal (Big Kiss Productions, 2010)
* New Orleans Prime Evil (Big Kiss Productions, 2011)
Non-fiction books
* Specific Intent (Pinnacle Books, 1993)
* Building Believable Characters - Contributing Writer (Writer's Digest Books, 1996)
* A Short Guide to Writing and Selling Fiction (Big Kiss Productions, 2010)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I thoroughly enjoyed THE BIG SHOW!, July 13, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Big Show (Mass Market Paperback)

If you want to know what New Orleans is really like, if you want to see how police officers deal with the most horrible crimes, if you want to read about real police officers, then READ THIS BOOK. If you're looking for Hollywood versions of cops, if you're looking for in-depth studies of criminal's minds, if you're looking for Mardi Gras or Jazz Fest or other New Orleans tourist things, then there is no reason to read THE BIG SHOW.

Veteran Homicide Detective Dino LaStanza turns the wrong way down a one-way street and almost runs over a burning man stumbling across a quite uptown street. LaStanza burns his hands putting the fire out. The man dies and for the next 320 pages, LaStanza works elentlessly to solve this heinous crime. Meanwhile, LaStanza and his partner Jodie Kintyre must catch a serial rapist who murdered his last victim.

This is life in the big pressure cooker, in the overworked New Orleans Police Homicide Division, the big show of police work.

! ! The streets of New Orleans are never better described than in De Noux's work, a former homicide detective. These books are not for everyone. They are uncompromising in their portrayal of cops who would never win a popularity contest. Years of witnessing violence has effected them. They see life differently than we do. De Noux shows this from the inside.

What De Noux doesn't do is glorify the killers. In THE BIG SHOW, we don't get into the killer's heads, we see them only as the police see them. We walk the streets, talk to real New Orleanians, see how cops use gallows humor (which De Noux does better than anyone) to release the tremendous tension that comes with the job of hunting killers.

LaStanza is unique. He's Sicilian-American, born of immigrants into a city whose culture is still dominated by ancient families. Unlike clichéd cops who drink too much or who are down-and-out bachelors roaming the streets like alley cats, LaStanza is not an alcoholic and is ma! ! rried (luckily to a rich woman). He gets to drive a Masera! ti (which was stolen in the previous book on this series, pretty damn funny because LaStanza was cocky enough to drive it around the seedier parts of town). His wife, Lizette, is far smarter than LaStanza (she's a graduate student) and an extremely sexy woman. This may frighten some readers, because Lizette knows the power of her sex. Sometimes, she's too much like a Playboy bunny, but this IS fiction. Few writers can write a sex scene as steamy as De Noux.

What De Noux does here is put a working class cop in a mansion with a beatutiful wife and servants, providing LaStanza with an automatic inner conflict. It bothers him to be rich. He leaves this comfortable life every morning for the bloody streets. It's typical New Orleans, rich vs. poor, uptown vs. inner city, Sicilian-American vs. everyone else.

The other suppporting characters are very nteresting. Jodie Kintyre, LaStanza's deadly serious partner, is a methodical, committed detectives with great inner streng! ! th. Paul Snowood, the cowboy wannabe, constantly provides humorous relief (sometimes annoyingly). Stan-The-Man Smith is even more annoying, a scene-stealer who sometimes lives up to his nickname of Psycho. The killers are chilling because, as in real police work, we only see them briefly, in violent snapshots. We don't get much about the victim's lives either, again because cops don't have time for a biography of their victim. Cops are too busy trying to catch the killer.

This book isn't perfect. The publishing house did a poor job of proof reading and spell checking this book. Then again, it's a new publishing house, so they should learn from this.

De Noux doesn't pull punches with language. Laced with the profane language of the street, THE BIG SHOW is not for children nor for anyone interested in profound literature. It's a too real for that.

I highly recommend this book. If you like reading Joseph Wambaugh, Elmore Leonard or James Lee Burke, then you'll li! ! ke reading this book.

I'm a woman, so don't think this bo! ok is only for men. JUST READ THIS BOOK.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Death in the City Care Forgot, June 21, 2005

By 

Charles Gramlich (Metairie,, LA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Big Show (Mass Market Paperback)

The Big Show is number 5 in a hardboiled series about a New Orleans homicide cop named Dino LaStanza, who is loosely based on the author, an ex homicide cop himself. I've bought them all. I've read them all. And I don't have any extra time or money to waste. They're genuine, and compelling. The only reason I give this one a four star rating is because I actually prefer a couple of others in the series a little better, particularly Crescent City Kills and Blue Orleans.

Charles Gramlich
Author of Cold in the Light

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A realistic portrayal of New Orleans and a good read., July 14, 1998

By 

Kent Westmoreland (New Orleans, LA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Big Show (Mass Market Paperback)

If you're looking for a realistic portrayal of New Orleans and police work or just a good read, THE BIG SHOW is for you. O'Neil De Noux's fifth La Stanza novel, THE BIG SHOW, is not only long overdue, but also a breath of fresh air.

As a long time New Orleans resident, I am tired of travelogue novels that only describe the sections of the Crescent City and Louisiana that you see in movies, TV shows, guided tours and Julie Smith novels. De Noux takes the reader into the mean streets of the city and introduces to the real characters that inhabit the city, not white-suited stereotypes speaking with implausible accents and dialect. De Noux maintains the same level of realism in his portrayal of police work. Homicide cases are not always clear-cut, interconnected and quickly solved. Police work is tedious and grueling work that exposes officers to the worst that mankind has to offer. This explains the twisted characters that inhabit De Noux's novels. ! ! To paraphrase Raymond Chandler, they may not be good men, but they're the best in their world.