How About Some Murder With Your Mardi Gras?

Mardi Gras Murder is by Ellen Byron. 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.

An exploding Mardi Gras float has got to be the strangest murder weapon scrappy sleuth Carmela Bertrand has ever encountered in Glitter Bomb: a Scrapbooking Mystery from the bestselling author Laura Childs. It's Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and scrapbook shop owner Carmela Bertrand is excited to be attending the Pluvius parade along with her best friend, Ava. Carmela's ex-husband, Shamus, rides by the duo on his float at the head of the parade, when suddenly the revelry turns to disaster. Shamus's float crashes and explodes, and although Shamus escapes unhurt, a member of his krewe is killed. Carmela and Ava plunge into an investigation of the krewe member's death, but as they dig deeper, it starts to look less like an accident and more like a murder...and Shamus seems less like a victim and more like a suspect.

In No Mardi Gras for the Dead by D.J. Donaldson, Kit Franklyn, lately drowning in personal doubts about her life and career, has to put those concerns aside after finding a corpse buried in the garden of her new home. Together with her boss, the loveable and unconventional chief medical examiner Andy Broussard, she sets out to solve this case that’s growing colder by the minute. Though they identify the body as a missing hooker, now dead for twenty-seven years, all hope of finding the killer seems lost—until the unorthodox duo link the body and two recent murders to a group of local, wealthy physicians.

With The Devil’s Muse, the acclaimed crime writer Bill Loehfelm conjures rowdy New Orleans in all its mess and marvel, and sends Maureen deep into the city on another wild, high-octane adventure. It’s Mardi Gras in New Orleans and rookie cop Maureen Coughlin has no idea what she’s in for. Her night working the parades begins calmly enough—until a half-naked man careens through the crowd and throws himself onto the hood of an oncoming SUV. As she tries to deal with the incident amid the pulsing chaos of the parade, Maureen hears gunshots. Moments later, with three wounded and a handful of drunken witnesses, Maureen has a full-fledged investigation on her hands. Who was the shooter? Who was he after? Who’s the next target? City bigwigs begin pressuring Maureen and her crew for quick answers. And with an amateur camera crew intent on capturing “the real Mardi Gras” for their YouTube channel, an incompetent supervising detective, and tense race relations in a city more likely to mistrust cops than ever, it’s going to be a very long night—and a memorable first Mardi Gras—for Maureen.

Spotlight: Large Print Cozies

     This week, I decided to shed a spotlight on one of my favorite genres: Cozy mysteries, or "cozies". According to Wikipedia:* "Cozy mysteries, also referred to as "cozies", are a sub-genre of crime fiction in which sex and violence are downplayed or treated humorously, and the crime and detection take place in a small, socially intimate community." We have a huge selection in fiction, audio, mp3, and large print. Today, the focus will be on some of our newer large print cozies.
     (*I know, I know; I am loathe to use this as a reference, but it's an easy and simple definition.)

   The Diva Serves High Tea: a Domestic Diva Mystery is written by Krista Davis. The Parlour opens up in town and domestic diva Sophie Winston is ecstatic that she now has somewhere to satisfy her cravings for all things tea and crumpet. This quaint little shop also serves as a place for the women of town to gather, gossip, and check out the affable and dapper Robert Johnson who runs the new antique store across the street. All the gossip about Robert seems innocent enough until he is found dead--an apparent poisoning--after attending a fundraiser at The Parlour the previous evening. Will Sophie be able to put the clues together to save her new favorite watering hole?

     Egg Drop Dead is a Cackleberry Club Mystery by Laura Childs. The big secret to the Cackleberry Club cafe's success is maintaining a good personal relationship with each of their suppliers. Naturally, when Suzanne has to go to Mike Mullen's dairy to pick up some wheels of cheese, she is more than happy to do so. When she arrives, however, Mike is nowhere to be seen, so she decides to check the barn where she finds the poor man's body. Suzanne, Petra, and Toni are outraged that one of their favorite suppliers has been disposed of like the muck in the stalls and they vow to find out who has committed this horrible crime. But as they get closer to the truth, the killer becomes desperate and decides that the ladies of the Cackleberry Club must be put out to pasture, permanently!

     Cat With A Clue is a Bookmobile Cat Mystery by Laurie Cass. Minnie is shelving books in the library early one morning when she stumbles upon something unusual and very disturbing--a dead body. The authorities identify the woman as a visitor who came to Chilson, Michigan to attend her great-aunt's funeral. What no one can figure out, however, is why the woman was in the library after hours. The police also seem to be preoccupied with a string of strange break-ins as well. As wild rumors about the woman begin to circulate, Minnie and her black-and-white tabby, Eddie, have decided they are going to preserve the library's reputation by finding the killer. They track down clues as they drive the bookmobile around the county and Minnie will leave no page unturned in their quest!