Floodgates-Mary Anna Evans

Floodgates
Mary Anna Evans
Poisoned Pen, Jul 2009, $24.95
ISBN 9781590585917

Archeologist Faye Longchamp leads a dig of a plantation adjoined to the Battle of New Orleans locale. During clean-up by the students of the damage Katrina caused to the famous battlefield and the adjacent plantation, a corpse is found. The person would have been considered an unfortunate victim of the Hurricane except for a dumbbell on top of the pelvis.

The police ask Faye and her fiancé Joe Wolf Mantooth to help them with the homicide investigation. The victim is identified as archeologist Shelly Broussard who worked with rescue teams following Katrina. Faye and Joe find clues in a local nonfiction account of the hurricane’s devastation and in a nineteenth century military engineer’s journal as the pair begins to unravel a clever homicide almost buried by the storm of the century.

The latest Faye Longchamp archeological mystery (see FINDINGS, ARTIFACTS, and RELICS) is an engaging whodunit that ties a historical journal to a modern day murder. The story line is character driven by the lead couple and a super support cast. However, the investigation feels somewhat emaciated though in fairness it is fun to read. Fans of the series will enjoy Faye’s newest escapades.

Harriet Klausner