Murder in the Bayou Boneyard by Ellen Byron

Maggie Crozat, proprietor of a historic Cajun Country B&B, prefers to let the good times roll. But hard times rock her hostelry when a new cell phone app makes it easy for locals to rent their spare rooms to tourists. With October--and Halloween--approaching, she conjures up a witch-crafty marketing scheme to draw visitors to Pelican, Louisiana.

Five local plantation B&Bs host "Pelican's Spooky Past" packages, featuring regional crafts, unique menus, and a pet costume parade. Topping it off, the derelict Dupois cemetery is the suitably sepulchral setting for the spine-chilling play Resurrection of a Spirit. But all the witchcraft has inevitably conjured something: her B&B guests are being terrified out of town by sightings of the legendary rougarou, a cross between a werewolf and vampire.

 

When, in the Dupois cemetery, someone costumed as a rougarou stumbles onstage during the play--and promptly gives up the ghost, the rougarou mask having been poisoned with strychnine, Maggie is on the case. But as more murders stack up, Maggie fears that Pelican's spooky past has nothing on its bloodcurdling present.

 

Series:Cajun Country Mystery #6  | Publisher: Crooked Lane Books | Release Date: 9/8/2020 | Genre: Cozy Mystery | Source: Publisher | Rating: 4.5 Cups

This is the sixth in the series but I had such a good time with this cozy mystery without feeling left behind.

 

Here’s what’s going on. Wanting to bring in new business, Maggie comes up with themed packages that allow visitors to reconnect with ‘spooky’ aspects of her hometown’s past. Deciding to make things even more enticing for future guests, she hires a distant relative to work as the masseuse at her family’s spa. Although things start going downhill when they realize there’s more to Susannah than they first thought. Now they find themselves in a land dispute and when Susannah dies, the Crozat family is the number one suspects.

 

Maggie was a fun character to get to know and she seems to have a lot on her plate. There’s her upcoming wedding to the town detective (it’s her grand-mere’s wedding as well) so there’s a lot of things to iron out. Then there’s managing her family’s business. And we can’t forget the pesky murder investigation. Even though she’s barely keeping her head above water, she still remained calm and collected.

 

The secondary characters were such a fun lot—Maggie’s family were just as front and center as she was and it really added a nice layer to the story. Then there was Bo, Maggie’s fiancé, as well as the rest of the town that gave this cozy a small town feel, which I enjoyed.

 

I felt that the mystery—or rather mysteries—in this was handled well and tied up nicely. Everything made sense in the end. While I had a feeling how this one was going to play out, there were still a few twists that made it interesting along the way.

 

This was the first cozy mystery I’ve read that’s been set in the bayou, so this was a bit different for me and I really enjoyed the different aspects that this setting brought to the book. It was fun learning about different aspects of the bayou culture.

 

To add to the fun of this one, there’s some yummy recipes included.

 

Overall, I enjoyed this one and I can’t wait to check out the previous books in the series.

Plantation Shudders  #1

Body on the Bayou  #2

A Cajun Christmas Killing #3

Mardi Gras Murder #4

Fatal Cajun Festival #5

Murder in the Bayou Boneyard #6