Origins of Mayhem: A Hookers & Blow Mystery Houston’s finest, and most questionable, detective duo is back on the case, and this time, it smells like smoke, bad decisions, and just a hint of mesquite. Detective Thomas Hookers has spent twenty-five years in Narcotics, outlasting bad guys and bureaucracy with nothing but sheer stubbornness and an intimate knowledge of where to find the city’s best brisket. Detective Curtis Blow is his newly assigned partner, a smooth-talking, designer-suit-wearing upstart who can talk a suspect into cuffs faster than he can ruin a dress shirt. Together, they’ve been roped into a murder case at Houston’s biggest barbecue festival, where the ribs are sticky, the suspects are sketchy, and the crime scene smells suspiciously delicious. It should be simple: find the killer, close the case, maybe even grab a plate of ribs along the way. But nothing is ever simple when Hookers and Blow are involved. Before long, they’re tangled in a mess involving food trucks, questionable business ventures, and people with a very loose definition of what “special sauce” really means. With a straight-laced homicide detective keeping them on a short leash and a city full of barbecue enthusiasts who just want to enjoy their smoked meats in peace, Hookers and Blow have to navigate a case that keeps getting hotter by the minute, and not just because they’re in Texas. If you like your crime fiction with a side of dark humor, a dash of absurdity, and characters who have no business being this entertaining, Hookers and Blow is the book for you.