Book excerpt: More than a whodunit detective story, Picasso Blues is a gripping tale of missed opportunities and hidden desires set amid rampant cynicism, fear, and deadly danger. In this sequel to Free Form Jazz, Ray Tate and Djuna Brown are reunited in a city being ripped apart by fear, paranoia, and racism. With the police force decimated by a SARS-like disease, Tate and Brown are assigned to a task force targeting a series of murders that seem to be racially motivated. As the city riots around them, can they fashion a future for themselves in their dreamland of bohemian Paris? Far more than a whodunit detective story, Picasso Blues is the gripping tale of a civil society that flirts with anarchy a society where the very defenders of order risk losing themselves to chaos.