BAYOU MOON

Welcome to La Valle, Louisiana, bayou country, where trees drip with Spanish moss and ghosts walk the wetlands in the moonlit night. Such is the setting for Bevill's undistinguished first novel, which mixes the occult with a possible double murder, decades old. World-renowned painter Mignon Thibeaux returns to La Valle, where she was born and lived a poor, but happy, childhood until she was seven years old and her world fell apart. Character development takes a back seat in a story full of "discernments," "séances" and "spiritual cleansings." Despite warnings, Mignon succeeds in insinuating herself into the bosom of the St. Michel family. Her goal: to find out what happened to her mother, Garlande Thibeaux, and Luc St. Michel, her mother's lover. Gossip has always had it that Luc and Garlande ran off to some isolated place far away; or that Luc's wife, Eleanor, killed the couple and hid the bodies well. The local sheriff evicted Mignon's father, Ruff, and his young daughter from their tiny cabin the evening Luc and Garlande disappeared. An angst-filled ending with some hold-your-breath moments brings us, finally, to an understanding of the mystery's central issues. Agents, Ron and Mary Lee Laitsch. (Oct.)