Under the Cajun Moon

Under the Cajun Moon
Mindy Starns Clark
Harvest House Publishers
Eugene, Oregon
ISBN: 978-0-7369-2624-9
2009
$ 13.99
332 pages

"You know all the etiquette in the world, cher, but if you use it to make a person feel small, then I hate to tell you, that's not good manners.  Not at all.  That's just ugly.

Chloe is an expert in the field of international business etiquette can make a person appear a little "stuffy". Emily Post was well-respected years ago, but was she a popular person that people would want to be around?   More than likely, probably not.  

While being interviewed for a local television program, a phone call from home is answered  by Chloe's assistant.   As soon as she is off camera, she is informed that her father is hospitalized and in has been shot.  Who would shoot her father?  Is he alive? 

Her assistant immediately arranges for her to fly to New Orleans to be with her father.  Chloe planned to immediately take a taxi to the hospital, but her mother calls to insist that she go to her father's restaurant to sign some papers.  Since she has power-of-attorney, now that her father's life in endanger, he insists that these papers must be signed immediately.  What can be more important than his life?

When Chloe arrives at the restaurant, she is surprised to find the son of her father's lawyer.  Apparently he inherited the law firm after his father's death.   She is slightly surprised but notices that he is an attractive and personable attorney and the restaurant is providing their meal while Chloe signs the forms.  This has become a wonderful evening even though she does feel guilty about not being at the hospital.

Chloe is shocked to awaken in a hotel room.  The lawyer from last night is in the next room, dead.  How did she get here?  What really happened?  It looks like she scratched the lawyer as one of her fingernails is broken and the police believe that she could have murdered him. 

Who knew where she was?  What did she actually sign for her father?  Why would someone frame her for murder?  Did she kill the lawyer?

Under the Cajun Moon is a well-written page turner set in New Orleans intermixing the mystery of the dead lawyer, the shooting of Chloe's father, the mysterious form signed by Chloe, while also referring back Cajun history into a wonderful story with a little romance, a dash of Christianity, and greed.   The story is exceptional well-planned with the purpose and culprit not being revealed until the very end.  This is not an easy story to predict the ending.

Mindy Starns Clark's books are wonderful books to read with roller-coaster adventures into a delightful mystery.