Floodgates
A
Faye Longchamp Mystery
Mary
Anna Evans
Poisoned
Pen Press (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1-59058-591-7 (1590585917)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59058-591-7 (9781590585917)
Publication Date: July 2009
List Price: $24.95
Synopsis (from
the publisher): Legend and romance drip from the lacy balconies of New
Orleans as surely as Spanish moss drips from the branches of the city's
ancient oaks. In New Orleans, Faye Longchamp is happy just to get up in
the morning and go to work. But centuries of tragedy shadow the
city--wars, slavery, and a monumental flood that killed a thousand
people and still threatens to wash all that history away.
Faye and her team of archaeologists, fighting to save New Orleans'
past, are horrified when a corpse surfaces that's far too new to be an
archaeological find. The police presume it's just another dead body in
a long, sad sequence of dead bodies left by Hurricane Katrina, until
Faye shows them a truth that only an archaeologist could see: the
debris piled on top of the dead woman is all wrong. It was no flood
that killed her and covered her body.
Faye knows that this is not a drowning victim whose life was snuffed
out by Katrina. Someone brought the woman, dead or alive, to this
flooded-out house and left her dead body behind. Presumably, that
someone killed her.
Faye and her fiance Joe Wolf Mantooth are drawn into the investigation
by a detective who believes their professional expertise is critical to
the case. They quickly learn that trouble swirled around the victim,
Shelly Broussard, like winds around the still, quiet eye of a
hurricane. Does Shelly's heroic rescue work in the aftermath of Katrina
the key to her death? Or does the sheaf of photos in her work files
hold the answer? Will Faye and Joe be the next innocents engulfed in
this deadly deception?
Review:
Archaeology graduate student Faye Longchamp has her first professional
opportunity to manage other archaeologists while excavating an early
19th century plantation and battlefield outside New Orleans in Floodgates,
the fifth mystery in this outstanding series by Mary Anna Evans.
But it isn't what's discovered on the battlefield that shocks the team,
but the body found in a nearby house that suffered damage from
Hurricane Katrina. It's clear almost from the moment she is found that
the dead woman didn't die as a result of the hurricane but was placed
there at some point later. Faye and her fiancé Joe Wolf
Mantooth are hired by the local police to assist in the investigation,
which becomes even more pertinent when it's learned the woman, Shelly
Brousssard, was an archaeologist herself. Faye's naturally inquisitive
mind, and the questions she asks, soon make her a target as well. What
secrets did someone try to hide by burying a woman amid the rubble of a
hurricane?
As is typical of the books in this series, Floodgates
is equal parts character study, murder mystery, and history lesson, all
of which are exceptionally well presented here. Faye's character
continues to develop as she balances personal and professional issues.
Joe, for example, is pressing her to set a date for their wedding
(she's approaching 40 and he wants to start a family as soon as
possible). But she also wants to finish her graduate program and
detours such as this assignment, which she readily admits she accepted
more for the money than for the line item on her resume, aren't helping
her achieve that goal. And though she enjoys her work, she's drawn to
murder investigations when they intersect her path. The police
detective who hires Faye and Joe, Jodi Bienvenu, has this wonderful
observation about Faye: "This was a woman whose intuition was so
engrained into her being that she didn't even know it was there. This
was also a woman of an uncommonly brilliant mind, and Jodi knew that
she, by comparison, was simply smart."
The author cleverly incorporates centuries-old history with years-old
history in the mystery plot by outlining how the levees that protect
New Orleans were originally designed and constructed and how they
ultimately failed in the aftermath of Katrina. In a somewhat refreshing
manner, she focuses more on what went right than what went wrong, what
people did during the crisis as opposed to what people did not. That it
was a catastrophe is never disputed nor is the fact that there were
many who took advantage of the situation, but there were also a lot of
unsung heroes who get to play a role in the book here.
Finally, another comment by Jodi on Faye that seems perfectly apt for
not only this book, but the series as a whole: "That's what I like
about you, Faye. You never stop being an archaeologist. You never stop
digging. And you never fail to look at facts, even when you don't like
them much."
Special thanks to Poisoned Pen Press for providing an ARC of Floodgates for this review.
Review Copyright © 2009 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
Have you read Floodgates? How would you rate it?
Mysteries in this series ...
Artifacts
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), April 2003
ISBN-10: 1-59058-056-7 (1590580567)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59058-056-1 (9781590580561)
Relics
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), August 2005
ISBN-10: 1-59058-119-9 (1590581199)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59058-119-3 (9781590581193)
Effigies
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), January 2007
ISBN-10: 1-59058-342-6 (1590583426)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59058-342-5 (9781590583425)
Findings
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), July 2008
ISBN-10: 1-59058-483-X (159058483X)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59058-483-5 (9781590584835)
Floodgates
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), July 2009
ISBN-10: 1-59058-591-7 (1590585917)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59058-591-7 (9781590585917)
Omnimystery
keywords for Floodgates
...
Location(s) referenced: New
Orleans, Louisiana.
