Mystery Book Review: Floodgates by Mary Anna Evans

Mysterious Reviews, mysteries reviewed by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books, is publishing a new review of Floodgates by Mary Anna Evans. For our blog readers, we are printing it first here in advance of its publication on our website.

Floodgates by Mary Anna Evans
A Faye Longchamp Mystery

Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1-59058-591-7 (1590585917)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59058-591-7 (9781590585917)
Publication Date: July 2009
List Price: $24.95

Review: Archaeology graduate student Faye Longchamp has her first professional opportunity to manage other archaeologists while excavating an early 19th century plantation and battlefield outside New Orleans in Floodgates, the fifth mystery in this outstanding series by Mary Anna Evans.

But it isn't what's discovered on the battlefield that shocks the team, but the body found in a nearby house that suffered damage from Hurricane Katrina. It's clear almost from the moment she is found that the dead woman didn't die as a result of the hurricane but was placed there at some point later. Faye and her fiancé Joe Wolf Mantooth are hired by the local police to assist in the investigation, which becomes even more pertinent when it's learned the woman, Shelly Brousssard, was an archaeologist herself. Faye's naturally inquisitive mind, and the questions she asks, soon make her a target as well. What secrets did someone try to hide by burying a woman amid the rubble of a hurricane?

As is typical of the books in this series, Floodgates is equal parts character study, murder mystery, and history lesson, all of which are exceptionally well presented here. Faye's character continues to develop as she balances personal and professional issues. Joe, for example, is pressing her to set a date for their wedding (she's approaching 40 and he wants to start a family as soon as possible). But she also wants to finish her graduate program and detours such as this assignment, which she readily admits she accepted more for the money than for the line item on her resume, aren't helping her achieve that goal. And though she enjoys her work, she's drawn to murder investigations when they intersect her path. The police detective who hires Faye and Joe, Jodi Bienvenu, has this wonderful observation about Faye: "This was a woman whose intuition was so engrained into her being that she didn't even know it was there. This was also a woman of an uncommonly brilliant mind, and Jodi knew that she, by comparison, was simply smart."

The author cleverly incorporates centuries-old history with years-old history in the mystery plot by outlining how the levees that protect New Orleans were originally designed and constructed and how they ultimately failed in the aftermath of Katrina. In a somewhat refreshing manner, she focuses more on what went right than what went wrong, what people did during the crisis as opposed to what people did not. That it was a catastrophe is never disputed nor is the fact that there were many who took advantage of the situation, but there were also a lot of unsung heroes who get to play a role in the book here.

Finally, another comment by Jodi on Faye that seems perfectly apt for not only this book, but the series as a whole: "That's what I like about you, Faye. You never stop being an archaeologist. You never stop digging. And you never fail to look at facts, even when you don't like them much."

Special thanks to Poisoned Pen Press for providing an ARC of Floodgates for this review.

Review Copyright © 2009 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved

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Synopsis (from the publisher): Legend and romance drip from the lacy balconies of New Orleans as surely as Spanish moss drips from the branches of the city's ancient oaks. In New Orleans, Faye Longchamp is happy just to get up in the morning and go to work. But centuries of tragedy shadow the city--wars, slavery, and a monumental flood that killed a thousand people and still threatens to wash all that history away.

Faye and her team of archaeologists, fighting to save New Orleans' past, are horrified when a corpse surfaces that's far too new to be an archaeological find. The police presume it's just another dead body in a long, sad sequence of dead bodies left by Hurricane Katrina, until Faye shows them a truth that only an archaeologist could see: the debris piled on top of the dead woman is all wrong. It was no flood that killed her and covered her body.

Faye knows that this is not a drowning victim whose life was snuffed out by Katrina. Someone brought the woman, dead or alive, to this flooded-out house and left her dead body behind. Presumably, that someone killed her.

Faye and her fiance Joe Wolf Mantooth are drawn into the investigation by a detective who believes their professional expertise is critical to the case. They quickly learn that trouble swirled around the victim, Shelly Broussard, like winds around the still, quiet eye of a hurricane. Does Shelly's heroic rescue work in the aftermath of Katrina the key to her death? Or does the sheaf of photos in her work files hold the answer? Will Faye and Joe be the next innocents engulfed in this deadly deception?

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