This is murder mystery to rival Auntie Agatha. Frankly, it is a bit more puzzling with its multiple suspects (all with more than sufficient motive), a provocative setting (uppercrust New Orleans), and a constant shift of suspicion among them to the very end. Check it out; see if you can outguess the author. Antoines, a premier restaurant, provides an opening, closing, and an in-between setting. And food! The major vocation/occupation of most seems to eatparticularly eat out. At least twenty references to dining and a listing of over seventy comestibles. Alexandre Dumas would be proud of our authoress knowledge of Creole cuisine. I havent come across so much since Edna Ferbers Saratoga Trunk. Anyway, who killed Odile St. Amant? Her no-good philandering husband? Her former lover? Her uncle, the sometime mercenary? A jealous sister? Maybe it was mom; sickly Odile was a drag on her love life. Her maid? Or maybe it was some tangential character, such as the old family friend, now a reporter/author. See if you can outmaneuver the police inspector. Too bad that this book has fallen into obscurity.

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