O’Neil de Noux Books In Order

Publication Order of Jacques Dugas New Orleans Mysteries Books

Publication Order of John Raven Beau Books

Publication Order of LaStanza New Orleans Police Books

Publication Order of Lucien Caye Private Eye Books

Publication Order of Lucifer Books

Publication Order of O'Neil de Noux Standalone Novels

Publication Order of O'Neil de Noux Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of O'Neil de Noux Short Story Collections

Publication Order of O'Neil de Noux Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

O’Neil de Noux
O’Neil de Noux, born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1950, is a prolific American short story writer and novelist. He was born to a dad of French descent and a mom of Sicilian descent. He was educated in Catholic schools like St. Mary of the Angels, Our Lady of Prompt Succor, and Holy Rosary and was raised Catholic.

The De Noux family traveled extensively as a result of O’Neil P. De Noux, Sr.’s being in the US Army. De Noux lived in Kansas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Italy before his dad retired to New Orleans in the year 1966.

During his time in Italy, De Noux started his life-long love of movies and books. He read a book a week from the army post library, and saw just about every Hollywood film produced between 1960 to 1963 at the post theater. The only exceptions were the Bond films and Psycho, which his dad deemed to be inappropriate for a pre-teen. When he was thirteen, he was able to see Psycho, which drew him to greatly admire, and later study closely Alfred Hitchcock’s films.

As a kid, his favorite writings were Homer’s The Illiad and The Odyssey, Edgar Allan Poe’s works, and the We Were There series of young adult novels, his favorite of which “Were There At the Normandy Invasion by Clayton Knight. He soon moved on to the Horatio Hornblower novels by C. S. Forester.

It was reading “The Martian Chronicles” by Ray Bradbury that drew De Noux to science fiction and inspired him to start writing. During the next few years, he penned twenty terrible science fiction stories ever written. He kept these stories and go back to each of them just to remind himself how badly he could write.

He was a police officer with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office from 1977 to 1980, something he called the most rewarding working experience of his life. He was promoted to the Homicide Division, where he found his calling finally found what he should write about. An exceptional career as a homicide cop followed where he solved just about every murder that he was lead investigator and assisted in over fifty other homicide investigations. He was named Homicide Detective of the Year in 1981, having earned seven commendations.

O’Neil became a private eye, after being transferred to a quiet police district when a new sheriff was elected. He worked as a chief investigator for eight years. He sat down to write a homicide novel in 1986, now that he was freed from working double shifts with the sheriff’s office.

He turned Patrolman LaStanza into a homicide cop, and finished Grim Reaper, which Zebra Books bought immediately.

O’Neil found his mentor in Harlan Ellison, his literary idol, who was introduced to him by a talented science fiction writer named George Alec Effinger, whom O’Neil was friends with and who taught him how to write short stories.

O’Neil married Debra Gray De Noux in the year 1992. They have collaborated on a number of short stories and is the model for a number of covers of De Noux’s stories and books. He has two kids from a prior marriage Dana (an artist painter) and Vincent (sculptor and artist) and O’Neil describes them as his greatest collaborative effort.

Police-Writers.com named “John Raven Beau” the 2011 Police Book of the Year. He also won the Derringer Award for Best Novelette for “Too Wise”, and a Shamus Award for Best Private Eye Short Story was given to “The Heart Has Reasons”.

“New Orleans Rapacious” is the first novel in the “Caye” series and was released in the year 2014. It begins as a wandering daughter case when this pretty widow hires New Orleans based Private Eye Lucien Caye to locate her twenty-two year old daughter.

The date is April 10, 1947, and Helen Croix walks right into Caye’s office with a picture of Madelyn, her missing daughter. She warns Lucien that he will be tempted when locates the strawberry-blond and captivating beauty. Madelyn Croix’s most likely going to seduce him. Helen describes her daughter as rapacious. Lucien has to look up the word to find that the term means greedy, ravenous, and avaricious. Subsisting on live prey.

When Lucien’s first lead ends up getting murdered, he realizes that this case isn’t going to be at all easy.

“12 Bullets” is the second novel in the “John Raven Beau” series and was released in the year 2019. Somebody using the moniker of a killed Mafia figure’s trying to extort money from the archdiocese of New Orleans. The archbishop worries that La Cosa Nostra might be behind the vandalisms of Catholic schools and churches. NOPD Chief Inspector John Raven Beau believes this is not likely and leads his Critical Investigations Unit in pursuit of the extortionist.

If LCN isn’t involved why are there Italian gangsters shadowing Beau and Jessie Carini, his girlfriend and former private eye turned bank executive. She has also found suspicious banking activity between Mafia families in New Orleans and other cities.

Extortion’s just the start while heavily-armed men attempt to assassinate The Great Beau and Jessie, who’s got a moniker of her own: Maneater. This Sicilian beauty is just as deadly as her boyfriend.

“Righteous Sentence” is the tenth novel in the “LaStanza New Orleans Police” series and was released in the year 2019. A nun just ran away with a young man. An ex-wife’s stolen her daughter. Ex-NOPD Homicide Detective Dino LaStanza, who is now a private eye, takes the cases on and learns the reason the ex-wife took off with her daughter. It turns him against the husband. The case of the nun is much easier to comprehend. Young people in love. At the same time, LaStanza’s wife has got her own problem. She is being followed and needs to be bodyguarded.

The stolen daughter case takes a sinister turn once she runs away from her mom. LaStanza and his crew find out why and frantically hunt to save the daughter from one terrible fate. When LaStanza and his team take on a case, they go all out.

One Response to “O’Neil de Noux”

1. Karen Rogers: 1 year ago

   My sister, dad and I attended your class at UNO several years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. My sister Tambi is looking for your newest book. Please tell me the name and here I can purchase this. Thank you. Karen Rogers

   Reply