A High Cotton Club Mystery

book one

       I stared up at the house that had been my home since I was eleven years old. Here I didn’t have to worry if the rent was paid, if the electricity came on when I flipped the switch, if there was something besides tequila and twinkies in the fridge. And I had a room all to myself, meaning I didn’t share space with those damn New Orleans cockroaches.

       It’s not that FrancieMay Cottonwood, aka Kitty Love, was a bad mother she simply lived life on her own terms and took me along for the ride. Her self-written obituary went something like bawdy, redheaded, talented, gregarious grifter who arrived in the Big Easy at age eighteen and fell in love with bayous, bourbon, and burlesque and not necessarily in that order. Her hobbies were pier fishing, rolling joints and buying dirty magazines. She died knowing Monty Python and the Holy Grail was the best movie ever, Bruce Springsteen the best recording artist, Clint Eastwood the baddest man on the planet. She had few regrets including she never quite mastered pole dancing, making a good martini, and no videos exist of her prowess on stage or in the bedroom.

      Okay, not everyone memorizes eulogies. I figured this one was worth the effort because it’s about Mother, and it explains a bit of who I am today.