A home-run B&B in a former plantation house is the setting for this third book in the Cajun Country Mystery series. I loved the first installment, PLANTATION SHUDDERS, so I was delighted to read A CAJUN CHRISTMAS KILLING. Deep in Louisiana, Maggie Crozat's extended family live in the town of Pelican. A feature of the festivities is a Christmas Eve bonfire, and the guests will expect fun along with sweet potato pralines and pecan--coconut pies.

Maggie is an artist and a tour guide at a larger business nearby, Doucet plantation, where she and her friend Ione are rightly offended by stereotypical historic costumes. They threaten to walk out rather than play the parts. But Maggie's own family's business is under threat. The investors are demanding a chance to modernise and upscale, however tasteless that might be. Combined with bad reviews on a tourism website, the B&B's days might be numbered. Then Maggie finds someone dead in suspicious circumstances at Doucet. That tour has to be cut short.

With so many characters, the tale is fine for people who have followed the series but may be a little complex for newcomers. Another new cast member or two arrive, including a former boyfriend of Maggie's who married someone else in New York. We also visit a grand home in New Orleans, as Maggie and her Grannie go to pay a condolence call. These particular members of the old money crowd don't come across as good ambassadors.

I'm fascinated by the food consumed during the tale. At home, Maggie enjoys shrimp, oyster, and crawfish in various recipes. In New Orleans, she eats hearty gumbo with rice, crab salad, and I had to look up muffuletta which turns out to be a packed sandwich of olive salad, mortadella, salami, mozzarella, ham and provolone in a special round Italian bun. Plenty of energy in the cool and damp days. A few recipes follow the adventure, one of which appears to be an excuse to cook with brandy, and all sound great.

The various dangers, dramas, and deaths are fitted in nicely around the Christmas festival and bonfires on the Mississippi levees. If you are looking for a scenic part of the world to spend Christmas in, this would appear to be top of the list. A CAJUN CHRISTMAS KILLING by Ellen Byron is almost as good as visiting Louisiana.