Review of "Body on the Bayou: A Cajun Country Mystery" by Ellen Byron

In this second book in the 'Cajun Country Mystery' series, amateur sleuth Maggie Crozat investigates the murder of a nefarious scammer.

*****



After a bad breakup, artist Maggie Crozat moves from New York City to her home town of Pelican, Louisiana. There Maggie shares a shotgun house with her Grand-mere;



helps her parents run the Crozat Plantation Bed and Breakfast;



and is a paid docent at a tourist attraction that was once the Doucet Plantation.



One of Maggie's co-workers at the Doucet Plantation, Vanessa Fleer, is very pregnant.....



......and about to marry Pelican's Chief of Police, Rufus Durand.



Maggie has agreed to be Vanessa's Maid-of-Honor, never anticipating all the duties this would entail. The bridezilla gives Maggie pages of written instructions as well as spreadsheets, and Maggie is expected to do everything from checking on the venue, negotiating prices, and ordering flowers to throwing a bridal shower, a bachelorette party, and a baby shower.

Maggie carries out her duties, both to pacify Vanessa - who constantly threatens to go into premature labor - and to placate Maggie's fiancé Rufus Durand, who's had a lifelong grudge against the Crozats. Rufus believes an ancestral Crozat cursed his family, and he's always giving Maggie and her kin a hard time. This makes things awkward for Maggie, who's secretly dating Rufus's cousin, Detective Bo Durand.



The Crozats are SO accommodating they even offer a free B&B stay to Vanessa's cousin from Houston, Ginger Fleer-Starke.



Ginger is expanding her house-flipping business to Louisiana, and brings two employees with her, a disgruntled female intern and a disdainful would-be partner.



Ginger SEEMS cordial but she's a schemer and scammer. Ginger claims her car was damaged by a rock in the Crozat B&B's pristine parking lot, and gets the Crozats to pay for repairs....and the Crozats are warned that Ginger cheats or sues almost everyone she meets.

After Ginger swans into Vanessa's bridal shower looking more elegant than the bride, things take a dire turn. Ginger is found dead in the bayou near the Crozat B&B, and Maggie's family and friends become persons of interest. Fearing an innocent person will be accused of the murder, Maggie helps the police investigate.

Meanwhile, life in Pelican goes on. Maggie takes in a homeless dog and homeless cat who've just had babies;





Maggie gives art lessons to Bo's autistic son Xander;



Xander's mother (Bo's ex-wife) moves to town; Grand-mere Crozat starts to keeps company with a retired lawyer; people eat Cajun food and drink Sazerac cocktails; and more.

The bayou ambiance is pleasant and the colorful characters add fun to the cozy mystery.

Recipes in the book include:

Turkey Dinner in a Braid


Bananas Foster Coffee Cake

Rating: 3 stars