Austin, Brice (University of Colorado Boulder Co USA)

Must - The Must Trilogy Austin, Brice (University of Colorado Boulder Co USA)

John Briggs, a career detective in Gulfport, Louisiana, doesn't need any more excitement in his life right now. He's a single dad trying to raise a teenage son. But this new case he's been assigned to could blow all of that up in a hurry.

He's worked the narcotics beat for 20 years; he's used to watching junkies kill themselves one fix at a time. What he's not used to is junkies that go berserk and kill other people-lots of other people. What he's not used to is junkies that keep coming at you even after they've been shot, even after they've been set on fire.

Then one of his informants tips him off that there's something new on the street: a drug called Must that might be the cause of the crime wave. And nobody knows where it's coming from.

The only clue John is able turn up seems like a strange one: while searching for Must on the Internet he stumbles across musth, the state of sexual arousal that causes bull elephants to rampage. Well, "rampage" is a pretty fair description of what crazed drug addicts have been doing all over his town, but elephants?

Still, figuring a strange clue is better than no clue at all, John follows up with Jill Relson, the pachyderm expert at the local zoo. Only to find out that he's interested in her as much as he is getting to the bottom of the case . . .