Plunder: A Faye Longchamp Mystery

The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico provides the backdrop for Evans’s engaging, character-driven seventh mystery featuring archeologist Faye Longchamp (after 2010’s Strangers). The ensuing oil spill makes what should have been a routine job for Faye and her Native American husband, Joe Wolf Mantooth—surveying archeological sites along the Mississippi south of New Orleans—vastly more complicated. When an injury sidelines Dauphine, the babysitter looking after the couple’s nearly one-year-old toddler, Faye replaces Dauphine with an amateur treasure hunter, 16-year-old Amande Landreneau, who lives on a houseboat with her grandmother. Things take a dramatic turn after the stabbing murder of Amande’s drunken uncle. Amande’s story and her tales of the pirates who claimed Barataria Bay as their home overshadow the archeology in this outing. Readers will hope to see more of Amande in the sequel. Author tour. (Mar.)