Full of lush descriptions of the Big Easy, Colley’s seventh Charlotte LaRue whodunit (after 2007’s Scrub-a-Dub Dead
) finds the New Orleans maid a murder suspect, along with her friend and tenant, Louis Thibodeaux. When Charlotte stumbles on the body of her guest and Louis’s ex-wife, Joyce, in her ransacked house, even Charlotte’s New Orleans police detective niece thinks Charlotte may be involved. Never one to take a murder rap lying down, Charlotte fights to clear her name by worming her way into the psychiatric ward where Joyce was treated for alcoholism to uncover clues about the recently released victim. Uncovering far more than she bargained for, Charlotte crosses paths with everyone from a lowlife pawn shop owner to a potentially crooked West Coast cop. Series fans will delight in this rollicking adventure. (Feb.)
