The Ragin Cajun: A Hardboiled Crime Saga
About this audiobook
Big Johnson is back, and the stakes have never been higher.
It was a cool April evening on the Mississippi, and I was fighting a losing battle at the poker table on the Ragin Cajun—a floating casino churning its way up the river. Down five large and surrounded by a table of questionable characters—from my flashy associate Pimpin Jack Frost to a silent, tattooed ex-con named Pig—I was looking for a way to come up off my losing streak.
Frost was dressed in a red, one-piece jumpsuit, with a low vee-neck front revealing a host of gold chains. He wore matching red pimp shoes, a white fur coat draped stylishly over his shoulders, with a matching white fur fedora cocked ace-duce.
Me, I was wearing a white, with blue pinstriped seersucker suit that was nice and cool. I wore a white Panama hat on my head cocked in a rakish manner. My dress shirt was pale blue, and I was sporten a blood red bowtie. I was dressed sharper than a Harlem sissy.
I looked up from the table and saw Madam Dubré hurrying over. She leaned in and spoke softly in my ear: “I’m missing one of my girls and we can’t find her anywhere.”
How does a girl just disappear on a traveling riverboat? Knowing my skill in locating lost souls Madam Dubré hires me to begin a dangerous new adventure on the mean streets of New Orleans. Welcome to my world.
"A masterclass in noir. Ralph Griffith delivers a high-stakes, sweat-drenched ride through the dark waters of the Mississippi that you won't be able to put down."
“Big Johnson is the most compelling investigator to hit the mean streets of New Orleans in years. Sharp, gritty, and unapologetically bold—The Ragin Cajun is a must-read."
"Style, suspense, and a voice that hits like a freight train. Griffith captures the humid, dangerous pulse of the Big Easy perfectly."
Discover more
About the author
From the Federal Prison System to International author: The Unconventional Path of a Crime Novelist
When asked recently about the background behind my Dmitri Petrov Crime Novels, it made me reflect on my unusual journey. My path to becoming an author is perhaps not what you would expect.For over three decades, I served two 14-year sentences in the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) for bank robberies. The federal system is a unique environment, a melting pot of individuals from every corner of the globe. In 2004, as I was beginning my last sentence, I decided it was time for a profound change. I felt a new path calling me, and I believed that as an author, my past would not and should not define my future.
In 2010 I was transferred to Butner, North Carolina. It was a smaller medical facility, and my unit of sixty inmates, and the prison's total population of around six hundred, provided an intimate, and in many ways, an unprecedented classroom. I shared that space for seven years with some truly infamous figures, including Bernie Madoff, Jonathan Pollard, Nicky Scarfo, and Carmine Persico—and that’s only a small glimpse of the experiences I had there.
During those twenty years, I dedicated myself to an intense study of Russian, Chinese, German, Japanese, and Spanish, along with my native English. I would seek out foreign inmates from those countries, intentionally "zoning in" on them to test my language skills. I believe that when you make the effort to learn someone's language, it opens doors to understanding that remain firmly shut otherwise. It was in this unique educational environment that I met a number of Russian organized crime figures.My journey is proof that inspiration can be found in the most unlikely of places. The lessons I learned—about language, culture, and the complex human beings on all sides of the law—continue to fuel my writing. It's a reminder that every experience, no matter how unconventional, can be a tool to create something new.
