Findings

Cassandra Campbell does a fine job with this fourth installment in Evans's well-received mystery series featuring Faye Longchamp, a Florida archaeologist and amateur sleuth. In this book Faye's field notes about a mysterious emerald are stolen, and her mentor is murdered. Her efforts to solve the crime take her into Civil War research and into danger. Campbell voices diverse characters--from old black men and Southern white sheriffs to Faye's Native American boyfriend. Her take on Faye, biracial, young, and well educated, is imaginative, giving her a crisp tone in the presence of academics and a hint of rhythm when she's among black Baptists. Some of the book's detail could have moved faster with more variation in Faye's narrative voice; otherwise, this is excellent entertainment. A.C.S. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

May 19, 2008
After digging in rural Mississippi in Effigies
(2007), Faye Longchamp returns to her home turf—Joyeuse Island, Fla.—to excavate the remains of a 19th-century hotel her family once owned in Evans's fine fourth archeological mystery. Soon after Faye unearths a large emerald on the site, someone beats to death Faye's beloved boss, Douglass Everett. In a secret pocket in Everett's pants the police discover the emerald. Later, Wally, Faye's “long-time friend who had kept her secrets back when she lived one step ahead of the law and the tax collector,” stumbles off a dock into her boat and dies, a knife in his back. Might the emerald somehow be connected to both murders? As the story settles into a comfortable pace that allows the reader to savor the characters, Faye and her Creek buddy, Joe Wolf Mantooth, seek to bring their friends' killer to justice. In the end, love prevails, without being either sappy or sexual.