Carmela Bertrand knows that Halloween in New Orleans means a week of rabble-rousing, costumed craziness—and she can’t wait to get the party started. But when a local antiques dealer turns up dead, Carmela suddenly finds herself in a real-life danse macabre…
An evening’s work deciding on the class schedule for her scrapbooking shop has put Carmela in the mood to kick up her heels. But after some strange noises draw her into Oddities, the neighboring antiques shop, Carmela’s night is abruptly put on hold when a bloody body falls out of a curio cabinet—and into her arms.
While shop owner Marcus Joubert was known for being an eccentric with a penchant for eclectic merchandise, Carmela never thought he was the kind of man who could inspire the passion required to kill. But when Marcus’s assistant—and fiancée—Mavis reveals that a priceless death mask was also stolen, it becomes clear that murder wasn’t the culprit’s sole intention.
Carmela can’t resist the urge to investigate the growing mystery, but as the list of suspects increases, she realizes it’ll take every trick in the book to unmask the killer thief before there’s another night of murderous mischief…
For fans of: Leslie Meier
When New Orleans scrapbook-store owner Carmela Bertrand finds Marcus Joubert dead in his shabby old antiques shop, she assumes he’s the victim of a random act of violence; it’s not like the man stocked anything worth killing for. But when she learns that Joubert recently came into possession of one only four masks cast of Napoleon at the time of his death, and that the mask has now gone missing, she starts to wonder if the antiques dealer’s death was an act of premeditated murder.
If you’ve ever read any of Laura Childs’ books, you’ve got a pretty good idea of what to expect from Gossamer Ghost, the twelfth in her Scrapbooking Mystery series. Gossamer Ghost has the potential to be a high-stakes, action-packed tale; the book’s setup is intriguing and efficiently managed, and Napoleon’s death mask makes for a grand MacGuffin. Unfortunately, though, Childs never capitalizes on either, instead pushing the mystery to the background and focusing almost entirely on the trappings (Halloween in New Orleans, y’all).
The sense of place is strong (Childs’ New Orleans is decidedly Disney-fied, but still comes to life on the page) and the book is bursting at the seams with Halloween-themed craft and costume tips (most of which are actually quite clever and creative), but the pace is languid, the prose is purple, and the characters are vapid and two-dimensional. Childs fails to provide Carmela with a legitimate motive to investigate either the mask’s theft or Joubert’s murder, resulting in a total lack of narrative drive, and her attempts to create tension and suspense are half-hearted, at best. If you’re looking for a light and fluffy yarn that’ll get you in the Halloween spirit and will help you embrace your inner Martha Stewart, go out and get yourself a copy of Gossamer Ghost by Laura Childs; if you prefer books with a bit more substance, though, you should continue your search.
Reviewed by Kat
