Murder in the Bayou Boneyard
Series: Cajun Country Mystery Book #1
Author: Ellen Byron
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
Page Count: 304
My Rating:
Book Summary
Maggie Crozat, proprietor of a historic Cajun Country B&B, prefers to let the good times roll. But hard times rock her hostelry when a new cell phone app makes it easy for locals to rent their spare rooms to tourists. With October–and Halloween–approaching, she conjures up a witch-crafty marketing scheme to draw visitors to Pelican, Louisiana.
Five local plantation B&Bs host “Pelican’s Spooky Past” packages, featuring regional crafts, unique menus, and a pet costume parade. Topping it off, the derelict Dupois cemetery is the suitably sepulchral setting for the spine-chilling play Resurrection of a Spirit. But all the witchcraft has inevitably conjured something: her B&B guests are being terrified out of town by sightings of the legendary rougarou, a cross between a werewolf and vampire.
When, in the Dupois cemetery, someone costumed as a rougarou stumbles onstage during the play–and promptly gives up the ghost, the rougarou mask having been poisoned with strychnine, Maggie is on the case. But as more murders stack up, Maggie fears that Pelican’s spooky past has nothing on its bloodcurdling present.
More Facts for Readers about our Sleuth:
Main Sleuth: Magnolia (Maggie) Marie Crozat
Best friend/ Sidekick: None
Physical Description: Caucasian female, Creole descent
Location: Pelican Parish, Louisiana (1 hour from New Orleans)
Time of Year: October – Halloween
Business: Helping to run the family’s Crozat Plantation Bed & Breakfast
Pet: Gopher, a rescue basset beagle hound, and Jolie a rescue Chihuahua mix
Love Interest: Bo Durand, Maggie’s fiance and a Pelican Police Detective
Family: Mom, Dad, Grandmother, Xander (her 8 year old stepson)
Cussing? No
Diversity? Yes! There is so much diversity especially in terms of ethnicity that there’s no need to list out the characters. But there is color diversity, as well as religious diversity, mental diversity, and sexual preference diversity. It’s a good representation of normal life and the many different types of folks that build a community and I for one found it very refreshing.
My Review
It is Halloween time in “Murder in the Bayou Boneyard”, book 6 in the Cajun Country murder mystery series by Ellen Byron. Nothing is going to get you in the Halloween spirit better than reading this book! Packed with a compelling series of murders, southern Halloween and funeral traditions, voodoo dolls, werewolf (rougarou) shenanigans, theatre troupes, poison, and paranormal groups – this book spans the whole month of October as the character’s celebrate “Pelican’s Spooky Past” each weekend.
I haven’t yet read any of the previous books in this series, but because there was a good recap and introduction to the characters I didn’t feel lost. I was able to jump into this book with no issues. And this book made me feel a lot of emotions. I felt really upset for the family when the “bad guys” were threatening their business and home, and I felt hungry every time a Cajun food dish was mentioned, and I even felt appreciative when the author took the time to represent different groups of people – for example, the young boy Xander who has Asperger’s. I thought “wow, that’s awesome that she included a character with this attribute”. You don’t see that enough.
I learned about Creole culture and traditions while reading, and it certainly makes me want to visit New Orleans some day. I’m a lifelong East Coast, USA resident myself and my only exposure to Louisiana is what I’ve gleaned from True Blood, Anne Rice novels, and various movies like The Princess & The Frog. But I cobbled together my 30+ years of pop culture depictions and read the characters with accents, and was able to picture the town and countryside with what I believe is relative accuracy, all things considered.
So many cozies are depicted up here in the North in places like Maine and Massachusetts that it’s great to be transported somewhere else for a while. Now, I just need to go back and read the first five books in the series!
** I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.**
