The Crozats feared that past murders at Crozat Plantation B&B might spell the death of their beloved estate, but they’ve managed to survive the scandal. Now there’s a très bigger story in Pelican, Louisiana: the upcoming nuptials between Maggie Crozat’s nemesis, Police Chief Rufus Durand, and her co-worker, Vanessa Fleer.When everyone else refuses the job of being Vanessa’s Maid of Honor, … of Honor, Maggie reluctantly takes up the title and finds herself tasked with a long list of duties–the most important of which is entertaining Vanessa’s cousin, Ginger Fleer-Starke. But just days before the wedding, Ginger’s lifeless body is found on the bayou and the Pelican PD, as well as the Crozats, have another murder mystery on their hands.
There’s a gumbo-potful of suspects, including an ex-Marine with PTSD, an annoying local newspaper reporter, and Vanessa’s own sparkplug of a mother. But when it looks like the investigation is zeroing in on Vanessa as the prime suspect, Maggie reluctantly adds keeping the bride-to-be out of jail to her list of Maid of Honor responsibilities in Body on the Bayou, Ellen Byron’s funny and engaging follow up to her critically acclaimed novel Plantation Shudders.
Nominated for a 2016 Best Humorous Mystery Lefty Award, BODY ON THE BAYOU finds Maggie Crozat once again using her artist’s eye to spot clues and help solve a murder or two.
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After devouring the first book in the Cajun Country Mystery cozy series by Ellen Byron, I had to jump on the second, Body on the Bayou. It’s quickly becoming one of my new favorites series, and I definitely recommend it for other cozy mystery fans. Set in Louisiana on a plantation home converted into a B&B, the charming setting and characters truly invoke a wonderful southern atmosphere while sharing and spreading great history and relationships among the town of Pelican.
In this caper, Maggie is forced into serving as the maid of honor for a rival-turned-friend (Vanessa) from the last book. She and the groom’s family have been at odds for 150 years due to a curse one of them brewed up. When Vanessa’s extended family comes into town, she sticks them on Maggie as part of the responsibilities for the maid of honor. Unfortunately, a few of them turn up dead! Maggie tries to solve the case, grows more attracted to the new detective Bo, and determines who she really wants to be. Will she be able to help bring a long-lost family member back to the fold? Or will she get caught up in the downside of a wedding not meant to happen easily?
Byron is a talented writer with tons of humor ingested into dialog and narrative. It sometimes crosses the line into witty or stomach-cramping clearly showing great range in how to keep your readers invested and entertained. The pages are easy to follow, I digested this one in under 3 hours. It’s got 4.5 stars from me… the only reason I didn’t give it a full five was parts of the story were a little forced — nonetheless, it made for fantastic reading and shouldn’t worry anyone. This is a very solid series. I can’t wait to devour the next one in a week as I try to catch up on this awesome cast of characters so I can read the ARC for the latest one next month.
Maggie Crozat has been pressed into service as maid of honor is her co-worker Vanessa’s wedding. As if dealing with the very pregnant bridezilla isn’t enough, she is also playing host to Vanessa’s cousin Ginger. At first, Ginger seems nice, but soon she is driving everyone crazy. Which means that when Maggie finds Ginger’s dead body, the list of potential suspects is very long. With finding a killer added to her maid of honor duties, can Maggie successfully juggle everything?
I completely enjoyed getting to revisit these characters. They are tons of fun, and the character growth we see in some of them is truly amazing. The plot is strong with lots of motives and secrets to keep us guessing until the logical conclusion. This is a strong second entry.
I love Ellen Byron’s quirky characters and the bayou setting. This is a page-turner with lots of humor and southern charm sprinkled in.
As if Maggie doesn’t have enough going on planning Vanessa ‘s wedding, helping at the B & B, and her tour guide job, she meets Bo’s goddess ex-wife. How can she compete with THAT! The cherry on top is Vanessa’s cousin’s dead body is found in the bayou. With the cops bumbling through the investigation Vanessa demands her maid-of-honor solve the crime, and she does. I had the killer figured out (2 for 2 so far) but I actually hoped I was wrong. I have every book in this series checked out from my library so my binge reading continues! Bring on the iced coffee!
This is still a new series (as this is only book 2), but what a great series. I will say that I have family that lives in South Louisiana in this general area, so I can relate to the crazy families, Cajun food and Zydeco music. But I don’t let that influence me….much!
Maggie is still trying to figure out her life but has somehow gotten roped into being Vanessa’s maid of honor. Now normally for most of us, that wouldn’t be a big deal…but Vanessa is just like those reality TV shows you see that don’t put brides in a good light, especially if they are Bridezillas like how Vanessa is acting. Maggie puts up with more than most people would for her.
That aside, the mystery portion has not 1 person being killed, but 2. Neither are good characters and when everything is revealed, maybe it isn’t such a bad thing that they are dead. The murderer was a little hard to figure out until we got near the end and I really had eliminated everyone but this character. I didn’t know the why, but we find that out as part of the reveal.
Then there is the budding romance between Maggie and Bo. It has its ups and down in this book, as most relationships encounter, but at least they are working towards figuring it out.
I do hope that Maggie does follow her dream of painting, she has talent but just hasn’t figured out how to market herself and her works. I think that could be coming in future books!
The Perfect Cozy
Ellen Byron’s Body on the Bayou is a masterpiece of mystery and romance set in the South. It left me with a big fat smile on my face. Not only did I not figure out the murderer, but I was also shocked by a plot twist at the end. Byron’s characters are richly drawn, the setting, pun intended, is to die for. A gentle sense of humor permeates the story keeping the tone light, but at the same time the characters make insightful comments.
My favorite lines:
• “That woman is the worst kind of Glossie,” Gran’ declared, using an acronym she’d invented that stood for ‘gracious ladies of the South.’ “She’s a … a … Flossie—a fake lady of the South.” (Chapter 4)
• “Little Earlie might be as annoying as a tick on a dog, but he was still part of her community …” (Chapter 17
• “The landscape was littered with potential emotional landmines.” (Chapter 19)
• “I’m trying to find the words that could tell you how much this means to me. But I don’t think they exist.”
And this is my very favorite:
• “Magnolia Marie died at age 101 in 1941, knowing that she’d helped Doucet and its employees survive three wars and the Great Depression. If Magnolia Marie could triumph over such great losses and traumas, Maggie could certainly power through the lesser obstacles that currently challenged her. “That,” Maggie told the teen, I is the woman I was named after.” (Chapter 23)
I’m going to download more of Ellen Byron’s books, and I highly recommend this book to readers who love cozy mysteries.
Book two in the Cajun Country Mystery series and I found this one to be so much better than the last one. Maybe is was because it was book one which requires the set up of the series but i just had a really hard time getting into the story. This one was much better as it starts with a bang, has lots of drama as a pregnant bride is involved, and finally ends with a big sh-bang that definitely different to say the least. Maggie is pregnant Vanessa’s maid of honor which is really funny because she is marrying Rufus of all people. As the guests start arriving for the week long festivities one of V.’s horrible cousins shows up and has to stay at the Crozat B&B. This was not so bad until she was found murdered next to the bayou near a lost dog and cat that had just given birth. Vanessa demands that Maggie investigates once she becomes the prime suspect which only gets worse after another body turns up shot by her new gun. The drama had me giggling, the development is smooth, and the little details are included at the same time (such as Xander finally speaks). While the main focus is the murder mystery itself we still get to keep up with Maggie’s budding romance as well as other things. Great for fans of cozy mysteries that are set in the South which adds that Southern charm to the mix.This one gets 4/5 stars.
Ellen Byron follows up her award-winning, acclaimed cozy mystery “Plantation Shudders,” set at the Crozat Plantation B&B of Cajun Country, with another winner, “Body on the Bayou.”
Set in Pelican, Louisiana, outside of Baton Rouge, Maggie Crozat is about to lose her mind planning a wedding for her demanding friend and co-worker Vanessa Fleer. But things get really hairy when Vanessa’s cousin Ginger shows up, an equally demanding woman who also loves to scam people by faking accidents. Naturally, Ginger has her enemies, which is why when her body is found in the bayou, the suspects are numerous.
Maggie, along with love interest and police detective Bo Durant, research the many suspects, including Ginger’s disgruntled coworkers, an ex-Marine with PSTD, Ginger’s spurned husband and even Vanessa. The intricate mystery’s woven in and out of an out-of-control southern wedding dressed in LSU colors, resulting in a rollicking story that will keep you hanging until the very end.
As we say in the South, Byron’s not from around here, lives in Los Angeles where she works as a TV writer, playwright and freelance journalist. But she studied at Tulane and did her homework, so she passes muster. But don’t take my word for it, her last mystery was an Agatha Award finalist for best first mystery, a Lefty Award finalist for best humorous mystery and a Daphne du Maurier Award nominee.
Maggie is roped into being Vanessa’s maid-of-honor, but it’s no honor as Vanessa and her mother keep adding to their already too long a list of outrageous demands. Maggie just doesn’t have the time, energy, or money to keep up with it all. And then Vanessa demands that Maggie also find out who killed Vanessa’s evil cousin, Ginger. Great descriptions once again transport you to Louisiana. There is no lack of suspects as no one really liked scheming Ginger. The end of filled with great twists that you won’t see coming.
I thought the characters were great as well as the story and history.
Loved it! These people are crazy.
I read the book pretty quickly because it captured my attention.
Amusing and interesting characters.
A rather puzzling murder. Why? Well, no one liked her, but why now? Why there?
The veteran character is quite warmly portrayed.
A good read.
Maggie is a tour guide for her family mansion, bridesmaid, wedding planner to a crazy pregnant woman, and a sleuth dating a police officer, Bo. Because of a family feud with Bo’s family they have to keep it a secret. Maggie also helps with Bo’s Autistic son, Xander. So when a evil cousin of the bride comes to stay at her Maggie’s inn and gets killed and the bride is blamed, Maggie decides she has to find the killer and get the bride married. This is a humorous mystery with a “down home feel.”
cozy-mystery, family-dynamics, friendship, usa, law-enforcement, murder, recipes, laugh-out-loud
What fun! The impending bride and her mother are nutz, the bride’s cousin makes the mob look honest, Maggie is worried about problems with her boyfriend, and then there’s the murders. The characters certainly are, the setting is marvelous, the plot twists are unexpected, and the herrings are all red. There is no problem for a reader who dives into this one without reading the other, and no problem should you also discover that you bought this one a while ago but it got legs and walked off before you even read it!
Well this time I got the audio. Meredith Mitchell does a fantastic narration.
I really liked it!
I enjoyed reading it. There were too many cliches about life in Louisiana and some not very accurate-just to entertain what people already think about us. The author switched back and forth between “Southern Belle” descriptions and Cajun-type descriptions of people -trying to make all readers happy I guess. The plot predictable, but overall it was an easy entertaining beach read.
I loved it, especially the ending!
So much fun to read because she really knows the area and her characters were perfect! The places she described were authentic for the bayou area and it took me back to when I lived there. Hated when the book was finished!
It was interesting from beginning to end. It kept me entertained and up later than usual as I just had to finish it.
Confy murder mystery read it a day and half.