Tag: Louisiana | Frankie Bow

February 15, 2023February 16, 2023

#MidweekMystery: Wined and Died in New Orleans by Ellen Byron

It’s hurricane season in New Orleans and vintage cookbook fan Ricki James-Diaz is trying to shelve her weather-related fears and focus on her business, Miss Vee’s Vintage Cookbook and Kitchenware Shop, housed in the magnificent Bon Vee Culinary House Museum.

Repairs on the property unearth crates of very old, very valuable French wine, buried by the home’s builder, Jean-Louis Charbonnet. Ricki, who’s been struggling to attract more customers to Miss Vee’s, is thrilled when her post about the discovery of this long-buried treasure goes viral. She’s less thrilled when the post brings distant Charbonnet family members out of the woodwork, all clamoring for a cut of the wine’s sale.

When a dead body turns up in Bon Vee’s cheery fall decorations, the NOPD zeroes in on Eugenia Charbonnet Felice as the prime suspect, figuring that as head of the Charbonnet family, she has the most to gain. Ricki is determined to uncover the real culprit, but she can’t help noticing that Eugenia is acting strangely. Ricki wonders what kind of secret her mentor has bottled up, and fears what might happen if she uncorks it.

In the second Vintage Cookbook Mystery, Ricki has to help solve a murder, untangle family secrets, and grow her business, all while living under the threat of a hurricane that could wipe out everything from her home to Bon Vee.

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About the Author

Ellen’s Cajun Country Mysteries have won the Agatha Award for Best Contemporary Novel and multiple Lefty Awards for Best Humorous Mystery. Bayou Book Thief will be the first book in her new Vintage Cookbook Mysteries. She also writes the Catering Hall Mystery series under the name Maria DiRico.

Ellen is an award-winning playwright, and non-award-winning TV writer of comedies like Wings, Just Shoot Me, and Fairly Odd Parents. She has written over two hundred articles for national magazines but considers her most impressive credit working as a cater-waiter for Martha Stewart. An alum of New Orleans’ Tulane University, she blogs with Chicks on the Case, is a lifetime member of the Writers Guild of America and will be the 2023 Left Coast Crime Toastmaster. Please visit her at https://www.ellenbyron.com/

Author Links

Newsletter: https://www.ellenbyron.com/

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/ellenbyronauthor/

https://www.facebook.com/CateringHallMysteries/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/ellenbyronmariadirico/

Bookbub:

https://www.bookbub.com/profile/ellen-byron

https://www.bookbub.com/authors/maria-dirico

Goodreads:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/23234.Ellen_Byron

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19130966.Maria_DiRico

Purchase Links

Amazon – B&N – Kobo – Google Books – Alibris – IndieBound – PenguinRandomHouse

Photo by PxHere

June 9, 2022June 9, 2022

#MidweekMystery: Bayou Book Thief by Ellen Byron

A fantastic new cozy mystery series with a vintage flair from USA Today bestselling and Agatha Award–winning author Ellen Byron.

Twenty-eight-year-old widow Ricki James leaves Los Angeles to start a new life in New Orleans after her showboating actor husband perishes doing a stupid internet stunt. The Big Easy is where she was born and adopted by the NICU nurse who cared for her after Ricki’s teen mother disappeared from the hospital.

Ricki’s dream comes true when she joins the quirky staff of Bon Vee Culinary House Museum, the spectacular former Garden District home of late bon vivant Genevieve “Vee” Charbonnet, the city’s legendary restauranteur. Ricki is excited about turning her avocation – collecting vintage cookbooks – into a vocation by launching the museum’s gift shop, Miss Vee’s Vintage Cookbooks and Kitchenware. Then she discovers that a box of donated vintage cookbooks contains the body of a cantankerous Bon Vee employee who was fired after being exposed as a book thief.

The skills Ricki has developed ferreting out hidden vintage treasures come in handy for investigations. But both her business and Bon Vee could wind up as deadstock when Ricki’s past as curator of a billionaire’s first edition collection comes back to haunt her.

Will Miss Vee’s Vintage Cookbooks and Kitchenware be a success … or a recipe for disaster?

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Review

Ellen’s Cajun Country Mysteries were a delight, and the series wrapped up satisfyingly. Happily, Ellen takes us back to Louisiana with a new series. Bayou Book Thief, the first installment of the new Vintage Cookbook mystery series, transports us to the heat, humidity, and hustle of New Orleans.

I love the way Ellen plays with the cozy mystery tropes we all know and love: Ricki (short for Miracle) James, a newly-widowed Los Angeles transplant, starts up a vintage cookbook – themed gift shop in the Bon Vee Culinary House Museum, in a historic mansion in the Garden District. Instead of big-city girl in the small town, our protagonist relocates to another big city (arguably, one with more personality and pizazz than Los Angeles). The circumstances of her widowhood are tragic, but at the same time darkly comical. Ricki’s mother is not the nagging matchmaker we know from other popular cozy series; Ricki’s parents are happily retired and too busy taking dance lessons to meddle with her life. And is this a book shop mystery, a culinary mystery, or an antique shop mystery? Why not all three at once?

One element that was satisfyingly to expectation was the murder: The discovery of the body is shocking but not gruesome, and the victim (mild spoiler here) will not be much missed. A mystery featuring an amateur sleuth needs to provide a good reason for the protagonist to get involved and not simply leave it to the police, and this is done deftly in Bayou Book Thief. Enough is at stake, including Ricki’s own livelihood, that she is inevitably drawn in to investigating the murder.

Bayou Book Thief is an enjoyable and well-plotted mystery with plenty of well-researched local detail and a satisfying conclusion. Warning: you may finish the book and find you have an irresistible craving for a Po’Boy. I’m looking forward to the next installment of the Vintage Cookbook Mystery Series, which is scheduled for release in February.

About the Author

Author Links

Newsletter: https://www.ellenbyron.com/

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/ellenbyronauthor/

https://www.facebook.com/CateringHallMysteries/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/ellenbyronmariadirico/

Bookbub:

https://www.bookbub.com/profile/ellen-byron

https://www.bookbub.com/authors/maria-dirico

Goodreads:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/23234.Ellen_Byron

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19130966.Maria_DiRico

Purchase Links

Amazon – B&N – Kobo – Google Books – Alibris – IndieBound – PenguinRandomHouse

February 2, 2022December 20, 2021

#Midweek Mystery: What Happened on Box Hill

What would happen if you combined all of Jane Austen’s characters into one modern-day novel?

Murder, of course.

When Caty Morland’s roommate, Isabella, falls to her death on Initiation night, Austen University is quick to cover up the scandal and call it a tragic accident. But avid true-crime lover Caty remains convinced that Isabella didn’t fall; she was murdered. With the help of Pi Kappa Sigma President Emma Woodhouse, Caty organizes a dinner party with the most likely suspects, including familiar faces such as Darcy, Elizabeth Bennet, Knightley, and Marianne Dashwood. The theme of the night is murder, and Caty has three courses to find out what happened to Isabella–and to try to keep the killer from striking again.

Buy on Amazon

Elizabeth Gilliliand

Austen University Mysteries

Elizabeth Gilliland teaches English at the university level, putting as much Austen into her syllabi as she can get away with. In 2018, she completed her Ph.D. from Louisiana State University, where she wrote her dissertation on Jane Austen adaptations and fever-dreamed this series in a caffeine-induced haze. She is a proud member of the Jane Austen Society of North America, and excerpts of the Austen University series have won awards through JASNA and Jane Austen & Co/The Jane Austen Summer Program. She lives in Alabama with her husband and son.

July 29, 2020July 25, 2020

Risky Whiskey: A 1st in series mystery

Stirring up trouble in New Orleans …

Eager to shake up her drinks and her life, mixologist Pepper Revelle jumps at an invitation to join the elite Bohemia Bartenders. Leader Neil thinks she’ll be the perfect advance gal for his team at a colorful cocktail convention in her hometown of New Orleans, but the job turns out to be more bananas than a drunk monkey. Setting up the key tasting for their distiller client, she and Neil discover their whiskey has gone dangerously bad. But how? And was this shocking poisoning more than an accident?

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Lucy Lakestone

Bohemia Bartenders Mysteries

Lucy Lakestone is an award-winning author who lives on Florida’s east central coast, among the towns that serve as an inspiration for the hot romances of her Bohemia Beach Series and the jumping-off point for the Bohemia Bartenders Mysteries. She’s been a journalist, photographer, editor and video producer but prefers living in her imagination, where the moon is full and the cocktails are divine. Learn more at LucyLakestone.com.

July 7, 2019July 14, 2019

Aloha, Yall #SampleSunday

Aloha, Y’all

CIA operative Fortune Redding crossed a ruthless arms dealer. Now she’s hiding out in remote Sinful, Louisiana, with a fake identity, fake hair, and a real price on her head. But just as she thinks she’s safe, her handler warns that Ahmad’s men are getting close. She has less than 24 hours to clear out and make it to the safe house in Hawaii. What’s more, they’ll be looking for a woman traveling alone, so Fortune needs a companion. A respectable, low-profile, non-trigger-happy companion. Which rules out Gertie and Ida Belle.
Mary-Alice Arceneaux just got a big surprise for her 70th birthday–a trip to Hawaii, courtesy of young Fortune Morrow. But with bounty hunters on their trail, and family secrets lurking in the unlikeliest of places, the southernmost state has a few more surprises in store.

Excerpt

The taxi driver was a friendly middle-aged woman whose car smelled like old cigarettes. She started chatting as soon as she pulled away from the curb. She asked Mary-Alice and Fortune where they were from, and confessed she’d never been to Louisiana. She did go to Vegas a few times a year, though, she told them, and she’d flown to Nebraska when her niece graduated from Creighton University.
“My, Nebraska’s awfully far,” Mary-Alice said. “Why did she choose to go all that way, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Lotta Hawaii kids like go Creighton. Never discriminate against the Japanese after Pearl Harbor, that’s why. Kept their doors open to everyone.”
“Are you Japanese?” Mary-Alice asked.
“Japanese, Hawaiian, Chinese, Podagee, Filipino, Scottish, German, an’ Irish.”
The rain thinned out as they drove out of town and up the coast. Fortune sat quietly in her hoodie and sunglasses while Mary-Alice marveled at the ocean view.
“It’s so unspoiled,” Mary-Alice exclaimed.
“Used to be all sugar plantations,” the driver said. “My parents both worked for C. Brewer. Back then, everyone worked the plantations. Get up at four, work by five. Lotta the old timers still talk about plantation days.”
“They used to have plantations too, where I’m from,” Mary-Alice offered. “Although I don’t believe folks recall them all that fondly.”

Aloha, Y’all is available on these platforms

This story is a licensed work in Jana DeLeon’s Miss Fortune world.

June 2, 2019June 4, 2019

The Lost Weekend #SampleSunday

The Lost Weekend

Mary-Alice Arceneaux has started a new career at age 70 as the newest member of the Sinful Ladies’ Detective Agency. She is happily learning the principles of detection from Ida Belle, Gertie, and Fortune–and of course, picking up tips from her beloved mystery novels. But Mary-Alice finds herself on the wrong side of the interrogation table when her cousin Celia accuses her of a shocking crime.
Unfortunately, Celia’s story looks plausible–at least to a sheriff under intense pressure to make a quick arrest. Now Mary-Alice and the Sinful Ladies have to find out what Celia’s hiding, and find it fast…or Mary-Alice will pay with her freedom.

Excerpt

“Don’t you try to fool me, Celia Arceneaux,” Mary-Alice scolded. “I know what you’re up to.”
“I’m speaking the truth,” Celia whispered.
“It’ll only get worse, darlin’. This time you landed in the hospital, next time it might be the morgue. You don’t have to protect him, Celia.”
It was impossible to discern any expression in Celia’s swollen features.
Celia started to move her lips, and then gave up.
“Celia,” Mary-Alice persisted, “You can’t just go around inventing stories about how this one kidnapped you or that one beat you. The sheriffs don’t take kindly to folks telling them falsehoods. Why, Deputy Sheriff Carter LeBlanc just went over to Fortune’s house today and tried to search it.”
Celia’s eyes widened by a millimeter.
“He did?”
“Well of course he did, Celia. Now, that girl knows her rights and she told him he was going to need a warrant. But he will get one, Celia, and he’ll be back, and you and I both know he’s not going to find anything. Not only that…”
Mary-Alice never liked to tell a lie, especially when she was in the middle of reprimanding someone else for doing the same thing. But she reasoned that a little deceit in the service of the greater good was no crime.
“I don’t believe you’ve been inside that house since young Fortune moved in, Celia. She’s made all kinds of changes inside, moved things around and such. What do you suppose is going to happen when your description of Fortune’s house is different from what Deputy Sheriff LeBlanc finds?”
“Don’t call it her house,” Celia whispered. “That Yankee strumpet will never own a house in Sinful as long as I’m alive.”
“Call it Marge’s house then, if you like,” Mary-Alice replied. “My point is that if Carter catches you out in a lie, you’ll be in trouble. Do you know you can go to jail for making a false statement to a law enforcement officer? Well, you can. And then whoever did this to you will walk free.”
Celia was quiet for a long time. Finally she gathered the strength to speak.
“Perhaps I misremembered,” she murmured.
“Don’t be afraid to tell the truth,” Mary-Alice encouraged her. “Who did this to you, Celia?”
“It’s coming back to me now.”
“Good for you, darlin’. You tell me exactly what happened.”
“The place I was held captive…it was the Old Cooper Place.”
“The…now Celia, you’re getting it all mixed up. The old Cooper Place is where I live!”
“I’m not mixed up at all, Mary-Alice.” Celia’s distended face was expressionless, but her tone was ice-cold. “And as you were prideful enough to show the place off after you fixed it up. I believe I could describe the interior quite accurately. Do you remember demonstrating how you’d organized your bedroom closet?”
“Celia!” Mary-Alice exclaimed. “You wouldn’t!”

The Lost Weekend is available on these platforms

This story is a licensed work in Jana DeLeon’s Miss Fortune world.

May 26, 2019June 2, 2019

The Pajama Murder #SampleSunday

The Pajama Murder

Local businessman Buford Fontleroy Deale III is found shot dead in front of Harriet’s Books in downtown Sinful. A blood-soaked pajama top is tied around his chest. And he’s wearing only one shoe.
The sheriff wants to talk to Harriet. Sinful’s beloved bookseller was one of the last people to see Deale alive. Fortune, Ida Belle, Gertie, and Mary-Alice need to get to Harriet before the sheriff does. They want to clear Harriet’s name, and stop whoever was behind the bizarre murder.
Except no one can find Harriet…

Excerpt

Mary-Alice loved Harriet’s Books, with its stale potpourri smell and its Local Author section featuring Gertie’s racy romances. Late in life Gertie had discovered writing as a creative outlet. She now published romances featuring mature protagonists, a genre she dubbed “seniorotica.” Mary-Alice’s humorless cousin Celia Arceneaux had tried to get Gertie’s books banned from Sinful, which only got them flying off the shelves.
“Tea?” Harriet offered, but her smile faded as she read her friends’ faces. “What is it?”
“We’ve just gone to see Buford Fontleroy Deale, Miss Harriet.” Mary-Alice spoke, as it was she who knew Harriet best. “He claims you’re defrauding him and is planning to gather evidence to prove it.”
“That can’t be right,” Harriet exclaimed. “Defrauding? How can that be? I pay my rent early every month, and I take excellent care of the property. That’s crazy.”
“What’s going on?” Ida Belle demanded. “Why would your landlord want to do this to you?”
Harriet sighed, motioned them into her office, and invited them to sit around the cluttered round table where she reconciled her sales each evening.
“Mr. Deale was here yesterday afternoon,” Harriet said.
“After book club?” Mary-Alice asked. Harriet nodded.
“He made a rather ungentlemanly proposition. I believe he’d been drinking.”
“Well I expect you turned him down,” Mary-Alice exclaimed.
Harriet nodded, her eyes fixed on the stack of computer printouts in front of her.
“He didn’t take the rejection well.”

The Pajama Murder is available on these platforms

This story is a licensed work in Jana DeLeon’s Miss Fortune world.

May 19, 2019

Vampire Billionaire of the Bayou #SampleSunday

Vampire Billionaire of the Bayou

The Sinful Ladies’ Detective Agency has just scored a cushy gig: Doing surveillance for a businessman who claims business rivals are after his trade secrets. But just as Fortune, Gertie, Ida Belle, and Mary-Alice are deciding how to spend their easy money, the unthinkable happens. The Sinful Ladies find themselves teaming up with the bewildered Sheriff Robert E. Lee…only to find that what looks like a ritualistic murder is far from the strangest thing about this case.

Excerpt

“I must say, Miss Gertie,” Mary-Alice ventured during one of their tedious nights of surveillance, “I felt nothing but sorry for Mr. Fosca when I met him, and you may laugh at me if you like, but I feel even sorrier for him now.”
Mary-Alice glanced at the passenger seat in time to see Gertie’s head fall forward.
“Miss Gertie, you’re falling asleep again!”
“What?” Gertie snapped her head upright and lifted the binoculars to her eyes.
Mary-Alice reached over and gently turned the binoculars around the right way.
“They turned the light out half an hour ago, Miss Gertie. May I pour you a cup of coffee?”
“No, I promise I’ll stay awake. If I drink any more coffee I’ll be prowling around in the bushes all night looking for a place to pee. Now what were you saying, Mary-Alice?”
“I was saying I feel terrible for Mr. Fosca. He’s a very lonely man.”
“Don’t feel sorry for him,” Gertie retorted. “He’s a creepy control freak, and he has way too much money to deserve anyone’s pity. And he’s using a fake name, so he probably has a criminal background. How much do you want to bet he’s got bodies buried all over that house?”
“Do you really think so?” Mary-Alice gasped.
“Nah, not really. Well, there was that body that turned up on the property right after he moved in, but it was just some poor hobo who probably died of alcohol poisoning.”
“I read the book he got his name from,” Mary-Alice said quietly. “It’s called All Men are Mortal. In the book, there’s a man named Raymond Fosca who is cursed to live forever. He’s doomed to witness humanity’s failures and disappointments, one after another, through history. And he only wants to make the world a better place, but it never works out.”
“I don’t see how spying on a pair of newlyweds is making the world a better place,” Gertie retorted. “All it’s doing is reminding me how long it’s been since I’ve had any action.”

Vampire Billionaire of the Bayou is available on these platforms

This story is a licensed work in Jana DeLeon’s Miss Fortune world.

May 5, 2019

The No-Tell Motel #SampleSunday

The No-Tell Motel

When a young woman vanishes from a roadside motel, Mary-Alice and the gang leave Sinful and head across the border to find her. They soon find that the unprepossessing McCully Inn holds some Texas-sized secrets, which the influential McCully family would prefer to keep hidden.
But with the missing woman’s life at stake, the ladies decide to keep poking around the McCully family closet and let the skeletons fall where they may. And with their technical know-how, decades of experience, and relaxed attitude about rules and procedures, they might just get to the truth.

Excerpt

Their new “command center” (as Mary-Alice liked to think of it) was an unused room on the second floor, a few doors down from where Solange had been staying when she disappeared. Inside were two double beds and a couch. Fortune immediately volunteered to take the couch, and no one argued with her. That was one of the advantages of age, Mary-Alice thought. No one expects you to sleep on the fold-out.
While Mary-Alice got ready for bed, Fortune and Ida Belle went to work. They disconnected the room telephone and in its place plugged in a tan plastic box about the size of a deck of cards. Then they pulled out a similar box and hooked it to a laptop.
“Are those little hard drives y’all are setting up?” Mary-Alice asked.
“They’re listening devices,” Fortune explained. “This one is an International Mobile Subscriber Identity-catcher. It’s like its own little cell phone tower. If Solange’s kidnapper calls someone in the area, we can not only hear the call, we can trace the location of the phone.”
“We should be able to hear anything that comes through the switchboard too,” Ida Belle added. None of it’s admissible in a court of law, and might not even be legal, but this setup’s pretty useful.”
Mary-Alice came over to take a closer look. Fortune slid under the desk to do something with wires and cables.
“Are there headphones?” she asked. “Will we be listening and taking notes?”
Mary-Alice imagined herself wearing big studio-style headphones for hours on end and wondered whether her ears would get sore.
“Thankfully, no,” Ida Belle said. “That’s how they did it back in my day. I mean, in spy movies. But now they can record and transcribe the conversations.”
“That way we can actually get some sleep,” Fortune said from under the desk. “And the voice recognition has some problems south of the Mason-Dixon Line. It can’t tell the difference between ‘oil’ and ‘all’.”

The No-Tell Motel is available on these platforms

This story is a licensed work in Jana DeLeon’s Miss Fortune world.

April 28, 2019

Black Widow Valley #SampleSunday

Black Widow Valley

Young men have been disappearing in Black Valley, New York–which now has the misfortune of being known as “Black Widow Valley.” As it happens, Mary-Alice Arceneaux has a personal connection with the tiny community, and is called in to help. Mary-Alice is thrilled to be a part of the investigation–but by the time she arrives at the forbidding Kilmer House where she will spend the night, she realizes she may be in over her head.
This modern retelling of Lost Man’s Lane takes the action from the sultry bayous of Southwest Louisiana to upstate New York’s remote Black Valley. Mary-Alice is challenged to keep her wits about her when she gets herself invited to stay in the forbidding old mansion that appears to hold the key to a string of unspeakable crimes. Fortunately (or not), Sinful’s Sheriff Robert E. Lee is on the case too!

Excerpt

Logan and Lucetta excused themselves after dinner, leaving Mary-Alice alone in the dismal dining room. Just as she was considering whether to get up and snoop, or try to find someone who would show her to her room, Hannah entered the dining room.
“Oh, Hannah, darlin,” Mary-Alice said, “I wonder if you could show me where I’ll be staying tonight.”
“Room’s not ready yet, Ma’am.” Hannah made no attempt to clear the table quietly; the plates and saucers clattered as she stacked them. “Miss Kilmer sends her apologies, and says she understands if you’d like Logan to drive you down to the hotel in town. She’s already called ahead and gotten a room for you.”
“Well, that’s ever so kind, I’m sure,” Mary-Alice parried, “but I rather did have my heart set on staying the night here.”
“Means you have to wait a while,” Hannah replied. “There’s no room ready.”
“Why, I’d like nothing better than to wait,” Mary-Alice declared. She squared her dainty shoulders and followed the larger woman back to the gloomy sitting room. Althea’s children had known of her arrival, and there must be dozens of rooms in this old house. What were they hiding?

Black Widow Valley is available on these platforms

This story is a licensed work in Jana DeLeon’s Miss Fortune world.