SingularFiction
21 0 13
[In this alternate history universe in which the French Revolution never happened and the United States ends at the Mississippi River] Nicholas Cortez Lyon is a private investigator, among other things. He spent five years in the Republic of Louisiana Navy during World War II, most of which was spent conducting Allied operations against USR ships in the South Atlantic and the Gulf. Across the Galveston Bay sits the City of Laffite, named after the privateer and Louisiana founding father. Laffite is a boom town, made wealth by oil, made famous by becoming the glitzy heart of the world film industry, colloquially known as Sugarlad. One day, he is summoned to the Belmont family estate by the daughter of the wealthy Gabrielle Belmont, Marla Belmont. She hires him for a job: investigate the suicide of Charles Belmont, her brother and heir apparent to the Belmont empire. You don't "solve" a suicide but she makes him an offer too good to refuse. But once Lyon starts to pry, he finds himself hopelessly entwined in the machinations of industrialists, film stars, and the city's organized crime. As he rapidly reveals the secrets of Sugarland, the question remains: Why?…