Cajun Mystery

Venus Thibodeaux had a reputation for being trouble. Some said she started at birth. When she finally left Sinful shortly after turning 18, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. When she blew back into town four years later, no one was happy about her return. She immediately launched into her same old scams, picking off Sinful residents with ease before disappearing again as quickly as she’d appeared.

Imagine investigating a case where each of the several victims had type O blood, drove an obsolete car, and hummed a nursery rhyme before committing murder and then suicide. That's young criminal psychologist Kit Franklyn's assignment and the solution just seems plain impossible. Her obese, jovial boss, chief medical examiner Andy Broussard, is just as baffled as she is. Together they devise strictly scientific possibilities.

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. But when the elderly couple keels over dead within minutes of each other - one from very unnatural causes - Maggie and her family suddenly become suspects in a murder.

Cain Lemaire, a Secret Service agent from New Orleans, has the dream job he’s always wanted - until a single night results in a scandal that loses him his post. Needing a new direction, Cain follows his sister to Japan and takes a job in Tokyo as head of security for the CEO of a top company. But what he thought was a simple security assignment unravels into a tangled web of corruption, greed and extortion.

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 très bigger story in Pelican, Louisiana: the upcoming nuptials between Police Chief Rufus Durand and Vanessa Fleer. Maggie Crozat, inexplicably tasked with being Vanessa's maid of honor, quickly discovers why everyone else refused the assignment when the bridezilla hands her a long list of duties.

In the land of moss, magnolias, and bayous, ghost stories suffuse the landscape like mist on a moonlit swamp. Swamp ghosts, hot-tempered villains and tricksters once lived there, and live on today in such blood-chilling stories as the six in this collection.

A long running serial killer case draws two prominent New Orleans detectives to the bayou country. Tiger has feasted on the undesirables. Enjoying the killing game, he has become extremely selective and very skilled in his trade. No one seems to care. Their leads provide little help, until Maurice converts a Native American psychic from suspect to friend.

To celebrate Zack's latest writing accomplishment, namely hitting the NY Times best sellers list for his latest book, Heart of Éire, Zack, Jillian, and the dogs fly to New Orleans to help promote the book at a large book expo. Accompanying them are none other than good friends Vance and Tori Samuelson, since it was the detective's idea to write a story featuring his Irish wife in the first place. However, once they arrive, a blatant attack during the exposition sends everyone into a panic.

What secrets can be found by the light of the Cajun moon? New Orleans may be the "Big Easy", but nothing about it was ever easy for international business etiquette expert Chloe Ledet. She moved away years ago, leaving her parents and their famous French Quarter restaurant behind. But when she hears that her father has been shot, she races home to be by his side and to handle his affairs, only to learn a longhidden secret that changes everything she knew to be true about herself and her family.

Clarence “Cat” Touchette, an elderly and very rich Cajun farm owner, is acting as campaign advisor for his friend, Simon, who is a candidate for parish sheriff. When Simon is threatened with blackmail, Clarence, with the help of his blind brother-in-law, J.O., and his friend and employee, Tee Man, investigates the threat. Cat resents getting old and irritability invades his personality in dealing with his family, friends, adversaries and associates. The discovery of a stray dog among his cattle affects him in a manner that even he has difficulty understanding.

What would cause two friends to leave Cajun country and go on a foolhardy romp through Colorado? The argumentative Cajun and Tee Man attend the National western stock show in Denver to buy a bull. They craft an impromptu visit to Winter Park ski resort where, coincidently, the blind J.O., is enjoying winter sports with challenged veterans. The raucous bunch celebrates and J.O. cajoles Cat into a snowmobile race, which ends in near-disaster.

Cantankerous Cat Touchette and his friend and employee, Tee Man, stumble upon Cat’s murdered neighbor, Ovey LaCourier. Cat later learns that the old man’s son, Ari, is in town and meets with him. Ari, an Army sniper, is near retirement eligibility, and in the process of investigating his father’s murder with Cat, his involvement with a childhood friend’s sister, and a general affinity for his new friends, gives retirement serious consideration. Meanwhile, once again, Cat cannot keep himself from landing in the middle of someone’s problem. 

Beneath the glitter of Mardi Gras lies the sleaze of Bourbon Street; under the celestial sounds of JazzFest, the nightmare screams of a city once at war within its neighborhoods, but after Hurricane Katrina, seemingly at war with nature and the rest of the country as well. New Orleans is a third world country in itself, a Latin, African, European (and often amoral) culture trapped in a Puritan nation.