Faye Longchamp, her Native American husband Joe Wolf Mantooth, and their son Michael have set up shop in a small Louisiana gulf coast town. There they meet and befriend Amande Landreneau, a bright teen interested in archaeology, who has plans to lift herself out of poverty through education. Amande, who lives with her grandmother on a decrepit houseboat, is suddenly the center of unwanted attention when Steve, the husband of the mother who deserted her, shows up with a will claiming his share of her estate. Louisiana’s complex inheritance laws give Amande a share of the houseboat, some oil stocks and a very small island. First her mother’s half brother and then her grandmother are brutally murdered; then the small stock of treasure Amande has found is stolen. When Faye’s babysitter is injured, she takes Amande on to help out with Michael. She can’t help but get involved with Amande’s fight to keep herself out of the clutches of her greedy relatives, all trying to become her guardian in the hopes of getting control of her money. Faye agrees to act as an unpaid consultant to the local law, fully aware that her efforts to help Amande and uncover the killer may just be the death of her.
In her delightfully erudite seventh (Strangers, 2010, etc.), Faye continues to weave archaeological tidbits and interesting people into soundly plotted mysteries.
