Bayou Book Thief (A Vintage Cookbook Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
1st in Series
Setting – New Orleans Louisiana
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Berkley (June 7, 2022)
Mass Market Paperback ‏ : ‎ 304 pages

Synopsis

A fantastic new cozy mystery series with a vintage flair from USA Today bestselling and Agatha Award–winning author Ellen Byron.

Twenty-eight-year-old widow Ricki James leaves Los Angeles to start a new life in New Orleans after her showboating actor husband perishes doing a stupid internet stunt. The Big Easy is where she was born and adopted by the NICU nurse who cared for her after Ricki’s teen mother disappeared from the hospital.

Ricki’s dream comes true when she joins the quirky staff of Bon Vee Culinary House Museum, the spectacular former Garden District home of late bon vivant Genevieve “Vee” Charbonnet, the city’s legendary restauranteur. Ricki is excited about turning her avocation – collecting vintage cookbooks – into a vocation by launching the museum’s gift shop, Miss Vee’s Vintage Cookbooks and Kitchenware. Then she discovers that a box of donated vintage cookbooks contains the body of a cantankerous Bon Vee employee who was fired after being exposed as a book thief.

The skills Ricki has developed ferreting out hidden vintage treasures come in handy for investigations. But both her business and Bon Vee could wind up as deadstock when Ricki’s past as curator of a billionaire’s first edition collection comes back to haunt her.

Will Miss Vee’s Vintage Cookbooks and Kitchenware be a success … or a recipe for disaster?

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Review

I was so sad when the Cajun Country series ended, so I was thrilled to see a new series set in Louisiana so I could revisit those memories, locations, and people. This first book did not disappoint! There are a LOT of characters, but the author gives you a list at the beginning and a brief description. I admit I didn’t read all of the characters so I wasn’t biased going into the book.

The protagonist is Rickie (short for Miracle) that was born in New Orleans but spent most of her life in Los Angeles and moved back here after her husband died. She is quite a young widow and we do learn the circumstances behind his death, and her desire to keep his memory pure to the best of her ability. She apparently also fell in with a Ponzi schemer much to her surprise and was afraid that it would follow her back to Louisiana. Luckily, she has many people on her side and willing to give her a chance despite her insecurity in herself.

The victim is one that needed to go. He was not a pleasant person and there were some other aspects to his personality that made him unlikable. It was amazing how many people he pissed off and it went back further than just the immediate people that surrounded him in the present. There are many red herrings set out for us while trying to pick through the clues to figure out the killer. I know that I wasn’t sure who to suspect and had a couple of ideas but wasn’t right which is the sign of a good mystery to me, that the clues aren’t obvious.

There are many characters that I did like but I really got a kick out of Madame, one of the tour guides. She is a feisty woman that has done a lot in her life much to the chagrin of her son. I won’t spoil the surprise so read the book. I loved that she wore the color purple for everything since it was her signature color as she stated. Plus she wasn’t going to put up with the stuffiness of her son or grandson.

I have a strong suspicion that I am really going to enjoy this series from the characters to the theme (vintage cookbooks) and the setting. I look forward to Rickie’s next adventure.

We give this book 5 paws up.

About the Author

Ellen’s Cajun Country Mysteries have won the Agatha Award for Best Contemporary Novel and multiple Lefty Awards for Best Humorous Mystery. Bayou Book Thief will be the first book in her new Vintage Cookbook Mysteries. She also writes the Catering Hall Mystery series under the name Maria DiRico.

Ellen is an award-winning playwright, and non-award-winning TV writer of comedies like Wings, Just Shoot Me, and Fairly Odd Parents. She has written over two hundred articles for national magazines but considers her most impressive credit working as a cater-waiter for Martha Stewart. An alum of New Orleans’ Tulane University, she blogs with Chicks on the Case, is a lifetime member of the Writers Guild of America, and will be the 2023 Left Coast Crime Toastmaster.

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