Fatal Cajun Festival


Book Description

USA Today bestselling and award-winning author Ellen Byron cranks it up to eleven in the fifth fast and funny Cajun Country mystery. Louisiana B&B owner Maggie Crozat kicks up her heels at a country music festival--but she'll have one foot in the grave if she can't bring the killer of a diva's hanger-on to heel. Grab your tickets for Cajun Country Live!, the pickers' and crooners' answer to the legendary New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Maggie Crozat, proprietor of the Crozat Plantation B&B, plans to be in the cheering section when her friend Gaynell Bourgeois takes the stage with her band, Gaynell and the Gator Girls. The festival's headliner, native daughter Tammy Barker, rocketed to stardom on a TV singing competition. She has the voice of an angel...and the personality of a devilish diva. But Maggie learns that this tiny terror carries a grudge against Gaynell. She's already sabotaged the Gator Girls' JazzFest audition. When a member of Tammy's entourage is murdered at the festival, Tammy makes sure Gaynell is number one on the suspect list. Gaynell has plenty of company on that list--including every one of Tammy's musicians. Posing as a groupie, Maggie infiltrates Tammy's band and will have to hit all the right notes to clear her friend's name.




Cajun Kiss of Death


Book Description

The next shot from Cupid's bow may be fatal in USA Today bestselling, Agatha Award-winning author Ellen Byron's hearty and delightful seventh Cajun Country mystery. In Pelican, Louisiana, Valentine's Day has a way of warming the heart, despite the February chill. But the air at Crozat Plantation B&B turns decidedly frigid when celebrity chef Phillippe Chanson checks in. And when the arrogant Phillippe--in town to open his newest Cajun-themed restaurant--perishes in a fiery boat crash, Maggie Crozat's dear friend JJ lands in very cold water. Did JJ, proprietor of Junie's Oyster Bar and Dance Hall, murder Phillippe because he feared the competition? Might Maggie's mother, Ninette, have bumped off the chef for stealing one of her cherished recipes? Or was the culprit a local seafood vendor, miffed because Phillippe was somehow able to sell oysters for a remarkably reasonable price, despite an oyster shortage? Maggie had planned to devote her February to art lessons in New Orleans, a present from her sweetheart, Bo. But now she has to focus on helping her friend and her mother cross a murder charge off the menu. Meanwhile, Maggie receives a series of anonymous gifts that begin as charming but grow increasingly disturbing. Does Maggie have an admirer--or a stalker? And are these mysterious gifts somehow related to Phillippe's murder? Blood may be thicker than water, but this case is thicker than gumbo. And solving it will determine whether Maggie gets hearts and roses--or hearse and lilies--this Valentine's Day.




Plantation Shudders


Book Description

USA TODAY Bestseller Secrets, suspects, and Southern hospitality abound at Maggie Crozat’s Louisiana B&B in this first installment of the Cajun Country cozy mystery series. Includes yummy recipes like Crawfish Crozat and Bourbon Pecan Bread Pudding! It’s the end of the summer and Prodigal Daughter Maggie Crozat has returned home to her family’s plantation-turned-bed-and-breakfast in Louisiana. The Crozats have an inn full of guests for the local food festival—elderly honeymooners, the Cajun Cuties, a mysterious stranger from Texas, a couple of hipster lovebirds, and a trio of Georgia frat boys. But when the elderly couple keels over dead within minutes of each other—one from very unnatural causes—Maggie and the others suddenly become suspects in a murder. With the help of Bo Durand, the town’s handsome new detective, Maggie must investigate to clear her name while holding the family business together at the same time. And the deeper she digs, the more she wonders: are all the guests really there for a vacation or do they have ulterior motives? Decades-old secrets and stunning revelations abound in Ellen Byron’s charming cozy debut, Plantation Shudders.




Fatal Cajun Festival


Book Description

Louisiana B & B owner Maggie Crozat kicks up her heels at a country music festival--but she'll have one foot in the grave if she can't bring the killer of a diva's hanger-on to heel. Grab your tickets for Cajun Country Live!, the pickers' and crooners' answer to the legendary New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Maggie Crozat, proprietor of the Crozat Plantation B & B, plans to be in the cheering section when her friend Gaynell Bourgeois takes the stage with her band, Gaynell and the Gator Girls. The festival's headliner, native daughter Tammy Barker, rocketed to stardom on a TV singing competition. She has the voice of an angel ... and the personality of a devilish diva. But Maggie learns that this tiny terror carries a grudge against Gaynell. She's already sabotaged the Gator Girls' JazzFest audition. When a member of Tammy's entourage is murdered at the festival, Tammy makes sure Gaynell is number one on the suspect list. Gaynell has plenty of company on that list--including every one of Tammy's musicians. Posing as a groupie, Maggie infiltrates Tammy's band and will have to hit all the right notes to clear her friend's name.




Body on the Bayou


Book Description

Murder strikes again in small-town Louisiana in the second Cajun Country cozy mystery full of Southern charm, spicy characters, and yummy food. B&B owner and sometimes-sleuth Maggie Crozat must use her artist’s eye to spot clues and solve a local murder mystery . . . The Crozats feared that past murders at Crozat Plantation B&B might spell the death of their beloved estate, but they’ve managed to survive the scandal. Now there's a trés bigger story in Pelican, Louisiana: the upcoming nuptials between Maggie Crozat’s nemesis: Police Chief Rufus Durand, and her co-worker, Vanessa Fleer. When everyone else refuses the job of being Vanessa’s Maid of Honor, Maggie reluctantly takes up the title and finds herself tasked with a long list of duties—the most important of which is entertaining Vanessa’s cousin, Ginger Fleer-Starke. But just days before the wedding, Ginger’s lifeless body is found on the bayou and the Pelican PD, as well as the Crozats, have another murder mystery on their hands. There’s a gumbo-potful of suspects, including an ex-Marine with PTSD, an annoying local newspaper reporter, and Vanessa’s own sparkplug of a mother. But when it looks like the investigation is zeroing in on Vanessa as the prime suspect, Maggie reluctantly adds keeping the bride-to-be out of jail to her list of Maid of Honor responsibilities in Body on the Bayou—Ellen Byron’s funny and engaging follow up to her critically acclaimed novel, Plantation Shudders.




A Cajun Christmas Killing


Book Description

Maggie Crozat is back home in bayou country during the most magical time of the year. In Pelican, Louisiana, Christmastime is a season of giant bonfires on the levee, zydeco carols and pots of gumbo. Except this year, the Grinch has come to stay at the family-run Crozat Plantation B&B. When he floods travel websites with vicious reviews, Maggie thinks she's identified him as rival businessman Donald Baxter. That is, until he's found stabbed to death at Maggie's workplace. And Maggie and her loved ones become top suspects.




Black Dust Mambo


Book Description

FIRST IN A NEW SERIES! “There will be times, girl, when all your magic ain’t going to be enough, times when it will seem to dry up like mud under the noonday sun, or even make matters worse. . . .” Kallie Rivière, a fiery Cajun hoodoo apprentice with a talent for trouble, finds herself smack-dab in the middle of one of those times her mentor warned her about when she visits New Orleans to attend the Hecatean Alliance’s annual carnival: her hard-bodied conjurer hookup ends up dead in her blood-drenched bed. And he was killed by something that Kallie would never dream of touching—the darkest of dark juju, soul-eating juju—a black dust hex that may have been meant to kill her. Now Kallie has to use every bit of hoodoo knowledge and bayou-bred mojo she possesses to clear her own name and find the killer—even as that dark sorcerer hunts Kallie and her friends. But Kallie’s search for the truth soon leads her in a direction she never anticipated—back home to Bayou Cyprés Noir, and to Gabrielle LaRue, Kallie’s aunt, protector, and hoodoo mentor . . . who is looking more and more like she just might be the one who wants Kallie dead.




Strange True Stories of Louisiana


Book Description

Reproduction of the original: Strange True Stories of Louisiana by George W. Cable




Specimen Song


Book Description

A “plain-spoken, deep-thinking Montana cattle inspector” takes on a serial killer in DC (The New York Times Book Review). With misgivings, cattle inspector and sometime deputy Gabriel Du Pré has left his hometown of Toussaint, Montana, for big-city Washington, DC, where the Métis Indian fiddler has agreed to play his people’s music for a Smithsonian festival. But like the frightened and confused horse galloping wildly down the National Mall, Du Pré is very much out of his element. He does know how to catch and calm a runaway horse, however. If only catching a killer could be so simple. When a Cree woman from Canada who came to sing in the festival is found murdered, her death is just the first in a series of fatal attacks on Native Americans. Each killing is foretold by a shaman, and each time a primitive weapon is used. As the body count rises, Du Pré fears he might be the serial killer’s ultimate target. New York Times–bestselling author Ridley Pearson says about Peter Bowen’s Montana mysteries: “The best of Tony Hillerman meets Zane Grey . . . Du Pré is a character of legendary proportions.” And Booklist calls Gabriel Du Pré “one of the most unusual characters working the fictional homicide beat.” Specimen Song is the 2nd book in The Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel Du Pré series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.




Other People's Children


Book Description

An updated edition of the award-winning analysis of the role of race in the classroom features a new author introduction and framing essays by Herbert Kohl and Charles Payne, in an account that shares ideas about how teachers can function as "cultural transmitters" in contemporary schools and communicate more effectively to overcome race-related academic challenges. Original.