Up Jumped the Devil

A Crescent City New Orleans Mystery #2

by Martha Reed

As festive Mardi Gras Carnival season begins, graffiti vandals are targeting notable tombs in NOLA’s historic St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. Jane Byrne, the cemetery’s new Chief Security Officer and Gigi Pascoe, a transgender sleuth must identify the miscreants and halt the desecration. Together, they snare two homeless teens who share a horrifying tale of off-the-street kidnappings fueling an inhuman supply chain network.

After the suspicious deaths of several key witnesses, NOLA FBI’s interest in the local kidnapping investigation withers. Overbooked NOPD detectives consider the missing NOLA homeless people a low priority item, and the Orleans Parish Coroner’s Office is wary of burning sensitive political connections. Refusing to quit, Jane and Gigi tap into the riotous Mardi Gras energy to expose a murderous criminal conspiracy.

351 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 13, 2023

About the author

Martha Reed is an independently published multi-award-winning mystery and crime fiction author.

Her Crescent City NOLA Mystery (#1), LOVE POWER was a 2021 Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Best Attending Author Award winner as well as a Silver Falchion Finalist in the Best Mystery category. UP JUMPED THE DEVIL (#2) and THE SEVEN GATES OF GUINEE (#3) continue the NOLA adventure.

Her John and Sarah Jarad Nantucket Mystery series, THE CHOKING GAME (#1), THE NATURE OF THE GRAVE (#2) and NO REST FOR THE WICKED (#3) garnered an Independent Publisher (IPPY) Book Award for Mid-Atlantic Best Regional Fiction.

Her short story, THE HONOR THIEF was selected for "This Time For Sure," the 2021 Anthony-award winning Bouchercon anthology edited by Hank Phillippi Ryan. Other stories have appeared in Pearl, Suspense Magazine, Spinetingler, Mystery Readers Journal, Mysterical-e, and in "Lucky Charms - 12 Crime Tales," an anthology published by the Mary Roberts Rinehart Pittsburgh chapter of Sisters in Crime.

Martha adores travel, big jewelry, and great coffee. She delights in the ongoing antics of her family, fans, and friends who she lovingly calls The Mutinous Crew.

Follow her on Facebook and BlueSky or visit her website www.reedmenow.com.

Reviews

[Crystal Toller · Rating 5 out of 5]

New Orleans

I got this book off Kindle Unlimited because I saw on Facebook it was coming out and would be available on Kindle Unlimited and I love books set in New Orleans. Jane has recently relocated to New Orleans and she and Gee Tanner meet a homeless girl and try to help her. When the homeless girl, Cleo's brother goes missing they try to find him. Jane finds him in the Cemetery where she has a security job and they work with the FBI to get Rex into witness protection. When Rex and Cleo go missing Jane and Gee are stumped. They find Cleo at a parade and while trying to talk to her Rex hears the doctor who hurt him and ends up rolling under a float in the parade. How Jane, Gee and Cleo solve the case of who is hurting the homeless people of New Orleans makes for a great and enthralling read. Great editing, interesting characters, and a great mystery. Highly recommend this book.

[Barbara Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Cemetary, Some Voodoo, and NOLA

Jane is working as a security guard in New Orleans’ famous St. Louis Cemetary, where she catches a homeless brother and sister. She and Gigi, her trans friend, set about helping them and discover an organ-stealing scheme including murder and cremation of homeless youth. In the process of uncovering this gruesome crime, they decide to start their own PI Agency, including Cleo, the homeless young girl, with lots of street smarts they can use in the wild and fascinating city of New Orleans. It’s a fun ride full of factual information, suspense, and horror.

[Carole Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set in New Orleans during Mardi Gras, "Up Jumped the Devil" is chock full of a host of well-developed interesting characters, intrigue, the lore of New Orleans, and a little bit of voodoo.

[Michele Shimko · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great characters and great location. Very well written.

[Teresa Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s just before Mardi Gras, and Jane Byrne, ex-cop and the new Chief Security Officer for New Orleans’ historic St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, is after a graffiti artist busy desecrating the mausoleums of the town’s oldest families. Jane, still dealing with a bad knee and PTSD, has a lot on the line and needs to stop this guy and keep her boss (and his seventies porno mustache) off her back so she can capture the miscreants who keep giving her the slip. Jane enlists the help of Gigi Pascoe, a transgender pole dancer and part-time sleuth whom Jane met when she moved into Gigi’s parent's garage apartment and, along with Gigi, became involved in solving a series of hate crimes targeting NOLA’s LGBTQ+ community. As they stake out the cemetery late one night, they come across a homeless girl whose brother has gone missing. Jane and Gigi take the case and uncover a grisly history of missing and mutilated homeless people amidst the pulsating energy of carnival season and corrupt political connections. A Fast-paced read with NOLA history, voodoo, rock-and-roll, and all the seedy fun that is New Orleans. Up Jumps the Devil picks up where Love Power, Reed's first novel in the NOLA series, left off. Sweep this up like Jane rides her Ducati motorcycle speeding through the dark streets of the Crescent City.

[Jenny Ramaley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book truly captures the dark and seedy atmosphere of New Orleans, combined with the warmth of the local people and fascinating characters who 'adopt' the heroine, Jane. The fast moving plot sprinkles in just enough action, tense scenes, voodoo, and supernatural touches to grab you from page 1 and carry you along to the final conclusion. Seriously, it was hard to put down. I liked this so much I found and read the first book of the series, Love Power.