Plunder

January 2, 2012
The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico provides the backdrop for Evans’s engaging, character-driven seventh mystery featuring archeologist Faye Longchamp (after 2010’s Strangers). The ensuing oil spill makes what should have been a routine job for Faye and her Native American husband, Joe Wolf Mantooth—surveying archeological sites along the Mississippi south of New Orleans—vastly more complicated. When an injury sidelines Dauphine, the babysitter looking after the couple’s nearly one-year-old toddler, Faye replaces Dauphine with an amateur treasure hunter, 16-year-old Amande Landreneau, who lives on a houseboat with her grandmother. Things take a dramatic turn after the stabbing murder of Amande’s drunken uncle. Amande’s story and her tales of the pirates who claimed Barataria Bay as their home overshadow the archeology in this outing. Readers will hope to see more of Amande in the sequel. Author tour.

March 1, 2012

Working in Louisiana, archaeologist Faye Longchamp (Strangers) doesn't expect a double murder and pirate plunder, but by now she's used to the unexpected. [See Prepub Alert, 11/14/11; author tour.]

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2012
An archaeologist is racing to research sites that may soon be covered by a massive oil spill when she is sidetracked by two murders. Faye Longchamp, her Native American husband Joe Wolf Mantooth, and their son Michael have set up shop in a small Louisiana gulf coast town. There they meet and befriend Amande Landreneau, a bright teen interested in archaeology, who has plans to lift herself out of poverty through education. Amande, who lives with her grandmother on a decrepit houseboat, is suddenly the center of unwanted attention when Steve, the husband of the mother who deserted her, shows up with a will claiming his share of her estate. Louisiana's complex inheritance laws give Amande a share of the houseboat, some oil stocks and a very small island. First her mother's half brother and then her grandmother are brutally murdered; then the small stock of treasure Amande has found is stolen. When Faye's babysitter is injured, she takes Amande on to help out with Michael. She can't help but get involved with Amande's fight to keep herself out of the clutches of her greedy relatives, all trying to become her guardian in the hopes of getting control of her money. Faye agrees to act as an unpaid consultant to the local law, fully aware that her efforts to help Amande and uncover the killer may just be the death of her. In her delightfully erudite seventh (Strangers, 2010, etc.), Faye continues to weave archaeological tidbits and interesting people into soundly plotted mysteries.

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