A home-run B&B in a former plantation house is the setting for this third book in the Cajun Country Mystery series. I loved the first installment, PLANTATION SHUDDERS, so I was delighted to read A CAJUN CHRISTMAS KILLING. Deep in Louisiana, Maggie Crozat's extended family live in the town of Pelican. A feature of the festivities is a Christmas Eve bonfire, and the guests will expect fun along with sweet potato pralines and pecan--coconut pies.

Maggie is an artist and a tour guide at a larger business nearby, Doucet plantation, where she and her friend Ione are rightly offended by stereotypical historic costumes. They threaten to walk out rather than play the parts. But Maggie's own family's business is under threat. The investors are demanding a chance to modernise and upscale, however tasteless that might be. Combined with bad reviews on a tourism website, the B&B's days might be numbered. Then Maggie finds someone dead in suspicious circumstances at Doucet. That tour has to be cut short.

With so many characters, the tale is fine for people who have followed the series but may be a little complex for newcomers. Another new cast member or two arrive, including a former boyfriend of Maggie's who married someone else in New York. We also visit a grand home in New Orleans, as Maggie and her Grannie go to pay a condolence call. These particular members of the old money crowd don't come across as good ambassadors.

I'm fascinated by the food consumed during the tale. At home, Maggie enjoys shrimp, oyster, and crawfish in various recipes. In New Orleans, she eats hearty gumbo with rice, crab salad, and I had to look up muffuletta which turns out to be a packed sandwich of olive salad, mortadella, salami, mozzarella, ham and provolone in a special round Italian bun. Plenty of energy in the cool and damp days. A few recipes follow the adventure, one of which appears to be an excuse to cook with brandy, and all sound great.

The various dangers, dramas, and deaths are fitted in nicely around the Christmas festival and bonfires on the Mississippi levees. If you are looking for a scenic part of the world to spend Christmas in, this would appear to be top of the list. A CAJUN CHRISTMAS KILLING by Ellen Byron is almost as good as visiting Louisiana.

Book Summary

Maggie Crozat is back home in bayou country during the most magical time of the year. In Pelican, Louisiana, Christmastime is a season of giant bonfires on the levee, zydeco carols, and pots of gumbo. Except, this year, the Grinch has come to stay at the family-run Crozat Plantation B&B. When he floods travel websites with vicious reviews, Maggie thinks she’s identified him as rival businessman Donald Baxter. That is, until he’s found stabbed to death at Maggie’s workplace. And Maggie and her loved ones become top suspects.

The Crozats quickly establish alibis, but Maggie’s boyfriend, Detective Bo Durand, remains under suspicion. With Bo sidelined during the investigation, Maggie finds herself forced to work with an unlikely ally: longtime family enemy Rufus Durand. Her sleuthing uncovers more suspects than drummers drumming, and lands her in the crosshairs of the murderer.

The sleigh bells are jingling, and the clock is ticking for Maggie and Rufus, who must catch the killer or it will be the opposite of a Joyeux Noël in A Cajun Christmas Killing, the recipe-stuffed third installment of USA Today bestselling author Ellen Byron’s Cajun Country mysteries.