Politics · the Key Concepts

The red, pulsating light made the Louisiana marsh seem even more unworldly. Every four seconds the soggy field was illuminated by the pale glow — even though the broadcast tower's lowest beacon was 150 feet above the ground.

The night fog was reflecting the light downward, where Clarence Menard was cussing the recent storm in Cajun French. He parked his truck, got out and began trudging through the mud to the tiny radio transmitter shack some 200 yards from the pot-holed country road where his truck sat idling — safely on the pavement. Menard had been towed out of the field twice before. He was determined there wouldn't be a third time.

Moss Point’s KAGN radio broadcast had gone suddenly silent some forty-five minutes before. A silent signal meant “dead air.”

Within minutes Menard would be dead as well. Murdered.

THE KINGFISH COMMISSION: A swamp water suspense novel about Louisiana politics, gambling — and murder.

Rob Baldwin is a middle-aged, middle-class owner-operator of a small-town radio station in Louisiana. That means he anchors a daily talk show, sells advertising, manages a small staff — and vacuums the offices on weekends.

Sherry LeVasseur is a media-buyer for an advertising agency in Baton Rouge purchasing commercial airtime from Rob’s station, and dozens of others throughout the state, for a popular riverboat casino.

When a mutual friend is murdered in the middle of a muddy swamp, Baldwin and LeVasseur uncover a wide-ranging and deadly conspiracy: a scheme to manipulate the licensing of New Orleans’ newest tourist attraction — the world’s largest casino.

THE KINGFISH COMMISSION is fiction framed in fact, combining high-stakes politics and gambling, with true-to-life characters and swamp-water suspense.