This first in the Cajun Country Mystery series introduces
Maggie Crozat, a happily single girl in Louisiana. Her
family run their historic home as a hospitality venue, and
her sparky grandmother updates the B&B's social page. But
not all is well in Bayou Country as we learn in PLANTATION
SHUDDERS.
Between storms, damp and general age, many fine old homes
are dilapidated; Maggie's family has to cut back on
maintenance but the guests get priority. Some of the guests
can try their patience, but hospitality seems to be bred in
the bone with these good folks. All the stranger then, that
a husband and wife should die in the family's care one
evening. To lose one guest would seem like carelessness to
me, but to lose two definitely draws police scrutiny.
I love the warm, friendly - and sultry atmosphere of the
tale, which drips charm and Spanish moss from the first
page. Everyone here is used to the peculiarities of the
nearest town Pelican and the Cajun country, but to us
tourists it's a delight. The local police department
hasn't had this much excitement for a hundred years, so
naturally they pull out all the stops to establish if a
murder was involved. The other guests are a mixed bunch,
and the hosts feel obliged to refund the cost of their
stay. If they decide to stay. Would you?
Character fun includes that Maggie has a job as tour guide
in a historic building, wearing period costume of a hoop
skirt and a banana curled wig. While her grandmere is prone
to quoting from urbandictionary.com and boasting about her
Facebook stats. A féte in town brings even more tourists to
muddy the swampy waters and Maggie has to provide the
family recipe crawfish dish. All in a day's work for this
amateur sleuth, who needs to clear her family's name and
restore the viability of their business. Can she do it?
There's a couple of recipes at the end of the book; a
crawfish dish that can be made with shrimp, and a bourbon
and pecan bread pudding. I'm definitely queuing up for a
taste of Ellen Byron's next book in this mystery series as
PLANTATION SHUDDERS gets us off to an impressive and
entertaining start.
Check in for some Southern hospitality in PLANTATION SHUDDERS, the Cajun Country series debut
from Ellen Byron.
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 her family 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 of 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.
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