Parchment and Old Lace

August 31, 2015
At the start of Childs’s uneven 13th scrapbooking mystery (after 2014’s Gossamer Ghost), this one coauthored with Moran (Caught Red-Handed), Carmela Bertrand, proprietor of the scrapbook shop Memory Mine, and her detective boyfriend, Edgar Babcock, have a brief encounter with assistant DA Isabelle Black—the sister of Carmela’s tarot card–reader friend, Ellie—at a New Orleans restaurant. After dinner, the couple walk to Lafayette Cemetery, where they find Isabelle strangled with a piece of antique lace. Carmela sees a possible connection to the costume collection of Vesper Baudette, the disapproving mother of Isabelle’s fiancé, Edward. Also providing grist for Carmela’s investigating mill are the activities of Naomi Rattler, a fashion blogger; Julian Drake, an ambitious casino businessman; and Oliver Slade, Isabelle’s chef ex-boyfriend. Contradictory assertions, awkward plotting, and situations that stretch credulity and cause the reader to question Carmela’s judgment contribute to a less than satisfying read.

May 1, 2015

Author of the New York Times best-selling "Cackleberry Club Mysteries," Childs joins forces with Agatha Award nominee Moran for the next entry in Childs's well-received "Scrapbooking Mysteries." Here, scrapbook shop owner Carmela Bertrand and her beau Det. Edgar Babcock are moseying about the famed Lafayette Cemetery in New Orleans when they discover Isabelle Black, choked to death with a strand of vintage lace. With a 25,000-copy first printing.

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