O'Neil De Noux

O’Neil De Noux. Jr., is another writer who is a good friend of mine. He was born and raised in Greater New Orleans, and I first met him at an NO SF con, I believe at a reading by George Alec Effinger. O’Neil and I--and his wife, Deb--have since become good friends and I’m an admirer of both. Deb is also a writer, and an editor. She put together the Erotic New Orleans collection, which I have a story in. O’Neil was a homicide detective and organized crime investigator for years in the Jefferson Parish Police Department, and he was well known as one of their best.

O’Neil began writing short stories in high school, but it wasn’t until after he became a detective that he wrote his first published novel, Grim Reaper, which introduced the character of Dino LaStanza, a New Orleans homicide detective on the scent of a serial killer. LaStanza, who bears quite a few resemblances to O’Neil himself, has appeared in four other novels and numerous stories. The LaStanza stories are hardboiled, crime noir, but his short stories range the field from mystery to SF to horror.

To my pleasant surprise, I found that O’Neil and Deb recently moved to Covington, not far from my new home in Abita Springs. Sounds like a barbecue is in the offing.

For more on O’Neil, check out his entry on Wikipedia