The Higher Order

In the 1970s, New Orleans, a cynical reporter running his own news flyer sometimes from a rusted '57 Plymouth Savoy, discovers that the city's urban legends are actually secret experiments run by a shadowy scientific cabal. It's "Amateur sleuth meets New Orleans noir." Cass Mason, a discredited journalist, is drawn back to his hometown to join the Academy of the Higher Order.

The Academy of the Higher Order, which once kept its laboratory and headquarters in the Old City Ice House, has since moved elsewhere within the city. His "office", provided by the Academy, is the former laboratory of a controversial scientist named Dr. Morsus Morgrim. Dr. Morgrim was the mysterious scientist who may have also been the founder of the Academy.

Along with everything else, Mason is provided with a rust bucket of a car. It's a 1957 Plymouth Savoy, 4-door, with only remnants of the original paint job. The engine and trans are sound even if the rest of it seems to be falling apart. He calls it: Podine.

Cass Mason writes The Higher Order, a loosely formed, obscure magazine he is trying to cobble together. Most issues are written in an accusatory tone aimed at his invisible benefactors, the Academy. He has inexplicably become the recipient of donations from the secret scientific organization with which he is affiliated. He takes the story into conspiracy territory. Cass doesn't have a contact person at the Academy. He doesn't even have an address. Every month, a nondescript manila envelope is slid under the heavy oak door of the Ice House office. Inside is a personal check, and sometimes a single sheet of paper with a Suggested Topic of Research, a hint, or a warning.

The money is more than enough to keep the printing press running and his seersucker suits dry-cleaned, but it comes with a mandate. The Academy wants data. Cass is a journalist; he wants to scream the truth from the rooftops. The Academy wants him to "observe and report" back to them first. Is he a reporter, a crime fighter, or an unwitting field agent?