Mardi Gras Murder: A Cajun Country Mystery (A Cajun Country Mystery, #4)

by Ellen Byron

USA Today–bestselling author

Southern charm meets the dark mystery of the bayou as a hundred-year flood, a malicious murder, and a most unusual Mardi Gras converge at the Crozat Plantation B&B

It’s Mardi Gras season on the bayou, which means parades, pageantry, and gumbo galore. But when a flood upends life in the tiny town of Pelican, Louisiana—and deposits a body of a stranger behind the Crozat Plantation B&B—the celebration takes a decidedly dark turn. The citizens of Pelican are ready to, “Laissez les bon temps rouler”—but there’s beaucoup bad blood on hand this Mardi Gras.

Maggie Crozat is determined to give the stranger a name and find out why he was murdered. The post-flood recovery has delayed the opening of a controversial exhibit about the little-known Louisiana Orphan Train. And when a judge for the Miss Pelican Mardi Gras Gumbo Queen pageant is shot, Maggie’s convinced the murder is connected to the body on the bayou. Does someone covet the pageant queen crown enough to kill for it? Could the deaths be related to the Orphan Train, which delivered its last charges to Louisiana in 1929? The leads are thin on this Fat Tuesday—and until the killer is unmasked, no one in Pelican is safe.

A simmering gumbo of a humorous whodunit, Mardi Gras Murder is the fourth piquant installment in USA Today–bestselling author Ellen Byron’s award-winning Cajun Country mysteries.

• ISBN10: 168331705X
• ISBN13: 9781683317050
• Publish Date: 9 October 2018
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Crooked Lane Books
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 304
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9781683317050

Reviews

[Baroness Book Trove]

Tiaras, pedigrees, murder and Mardi Gras, fun!

Mardi Gras Murder by Ellen Byron is a delightful southern cozy mystery. This book is the first that I have read of Ellen Byron. I first saw this book last year when it was published, and I knew then that I had to read it. OK, the cover totally drew me in but the plot summary is what made me buy it. I am so glad that I did.

Magnolia Marie Crozat ~ Maggie

Our sleuth is Maggie, she grew up in Pelican Louisana, went to college, lived in New York for a while and came home. Now, she helps out at her family Bed and Breakfast and works at a plantation house turned into a museum which was once owned by her grandmother’s family.

Maggie has an intuition when it comes to finding clues and figuring out whodunit. She happened to be the one who found the murdered town historian. Isn’t that the perfect sign of a good sleuth?

What I like about Maggie: she is there for her family, she knows what she wants in life, and she is easy to talk to, which is why people tell her things.

What I didn’t like was that she was always running behind and forgetting appointments. However, some of that was due to covering for her Gran and part was due to the murder but still.

Bo Durand

Bo Durand is our sleuth’s love interest and her connection to the police force. Yep, he is a detective on Pelican PD. Bo is a great guy, he has a son with Asperger’s, but Bo handles its stride. He and Maggie are close at the beginning of the book, but then things start to change.

Bo does take Maggie’s clues and follow up with them. He also doesn’t try to stop her from getting involved. I like that he trusts that Maggie knows what she is doing. I also like that Bo is a sweet guy, not just with his son and Maggie but with everyone. He is a true gentleman.

Mystery

The mystery is my favorite part. It is filled with genealogy, family secrets and lies. There is blackmailing, conniving and threating. It was so fun to read. I truly loved the parts about the local history and orphan train. I had never heard of anything like that before, but I did a couple of google searches and wow. Super cool.

The entire story is so well written, and it highlights the Mardi Gras true meanings which I didn’t know anything about before. I thought that instead of Mardi Gras in New Orleans as I now have on my bucket list I might go to one of the small towns that the author talks about at the end. I will forever have a different opinion of Fat Tuesday.

5 Stars for Mardi Gras Murder by Ellen Byron

My rating for Mardi Gras Murder by Ellen Byron is five stars. The combination of history, pedigree, beauty pageants, gumbo all in small-town Cajun country is so perfectly balanced. I couldn’t put the book down. As soon as I have the time I plan to go back and read the first three books in the series.

Oh, and don’t forget there are some great recipes included.

And I wanted to send out an “awesome job” to Stephen Gardner who created the cover. As someone who-totally-first-judges-a-book-by-the-cover, you really caught my eye.

Thank you for dropping by! I hope you enjoyed this review of Mardi Gras Murder by Ellen Byron.

Anyways, until next time, enjoy this review brought to you by,

Happy Fat Tuesday and enjoy your Mardi Gras!This review was originally posted on Baroness' Book Trove

[MurderByDeath]

Cozy mysteries are perfect when life feels hard and you want to escape somewhere that feels fairly uncomplicated, even if people are being murdered.  This series, set in small town Louisiana, is one of the stronger ones to come out in recent years.  It's not perfect by any stretch, but it's got good bones, so to speak.   Mardi Gras Murder takes place very soon after a fairly catastrophic flood sweeps through, one that leaves behind the body of a John Doe.  At first presumed to have been a victim of the flood waters, an autopsy reveals he was shot.  As the town rebuilds and focuses on their Mardi Gras celebrations, a judge of the local beauty contest is also shot and killed, and in spite of any evidence, our MC Maggie has a gut feeling the two are related.  Of course they are.  After attempted murder is tried on another judge, Maggie starts looking for connections to the John Doe.   The beauty contest is a total red herring; that's not a spoiler either, as it's pretty obvious from the get go that it's meant to be.  The real ties that kill are much more investing that a vapid beauty contest, though the ultimate motivation behind them is just as shallow and meaningless.    Still, the author writes a solid setting with strong characters - all of them, men and women, good and bad.  If the plotting and murder motivations aren't as strong as they could be, they're surrounded by a lot that is.  The backdrop and characters are why I probably rated this higher than I should, objectively speaking.  But I got happily lost in backwater Louisiana for a day or two, and I'll happily get lost in it again, should the author write another.

[Eve1972]

So I am quickly becoming a big fan of this series. Book one was a little iffy for me, but the last two have been really enjoyable. Again, as with the previous books in the series, the writing was great. The mystery kept me guessing right up until the end. I love the Lousiana setting and all the history and traditions the author includes. I love the recipes. There is a fantastic array of secondary characters that keep things lively, and Maggie is a very likable leading lady.





My only issue with this one was I wasn't a huge fan of the discord between Maggie and Bo. It made the book angsty, and I don't read cozy mysteries for romantic angst. If I wanted that type of thing, I'd read a romance book. I prefer that my cozies have established couples (or are single), that remain happy. That said, it all works out in the end, and I assume (hopefully) going forward it will be all smooth sailing for them as a couple.