First line: “A loup-garou!” exclaimed Carmela Bertrand.
From the inside cover: With Halloween barely a week away, things are getting even spookier than usual in New Orleans. A party at Juju Voodoo draws a fabulous throng, and Carmela’s friend Ava has hired a sexy tarot reader named Giovanni to work the crowd. What he doesn’t foretell is that on her way home Carmela will find the body of a beautiful model behind a Dumpster – and be attacked herself.
It’s Giovanni the gypsy who appears to save her – or was he already there? He’s the police’s number one suspect, but Ava is determined to stand by her employee…even if he does have a tricky way of dodging certain questions. Ava and Carmela have plenty of other strange leads to follow up, like the horrifying tooth marks around the victim’s neck, and the nonhuman hairs found at the scene. As the witching our draws closer, Carmela must discover what’s lurking in the shadows of the French Quarter – or she’ll get the fright of her life…
My thoughts: This is the fifth book in Laura Child’s scrapbooking mystery series. Frill Kill is a fun and enjoyable book to read filled with quirky characters and the fun background of New Orleans during Halloween. The book opens up with Ava, Carmela’s best friend, hosting a Halloween party at her voodoo shop. At the end of the evening, on her way home, Carmela stumbles onto a dead body and ends up being attacked herself. Of course, this means that now Carmela, a Jessica Fletcher-like sleuth, is going to have to figure out what happened, and so her investigating pursuits begin. As Carmela and Ava start snooping around, they find themselves in the middle of high fashion, going so far as to take a walk on the cat walk for a fashion show, dealing with fake werewolves, and of course, numerous run-ins with Shamus, Carmela’s soon-to-be ex-husband, all on the way to figuring out who-did-it. My favorite part of this series is all the scrapbooking tips thrown in not only during the story but also included at the end of the book, along with some great New Orleans recipes. After reading these books I always feel compelled to pull out my scrapbooking stuff and get working on my own albums, which I am sadly way behind on!
(I borrowed this book from the library.)
This sounds like a fun series. I absolutely love scrap booking so the idea of a series that features one of my favorite hobbies is exciting. Plus I feel like I should read more murder mysteries. I always enjoy them when I do pick one up.