Death Swatch

I always enjoy the description of one of my favorite cities. The female lead is funny,yet smart. It is good, relaxing reading.

Laura Childs comes up with yet another great mystery, set in New Orleans, around the scrapbooking shop of her heroine. The book is an easy read, with lots of interesting information about the city of New Orleans, and there are great recipes and scrapbooking tips in the back of the book. I give two thumbs up for this excellent, exciting book!

As a young girl I used to devour mystery books. I loved spending time reading Nancy Drew and The Three Investigators books. Laura Child's Scrapbooking Mysteries are sort of like my grown-up version of the books I loved as a youth. Her mysteries are engaging and interesting and they keep you guessing. I love how the author includes her love of scrapbooking and altered crafts into the storyline. It is fun to read the scrapbooking tips and ideas that often become an important part of the plot line. I also love that she includes recipes for the food she mentions within the novel. I have even made a few of them and have each been delicious! Death Swatch was another great mystery, set against the backdrop of Mardi Gras in a post-Katrina New Orleans. A great story and fun characters made this an easy and pleasurable read.

I enjoy this series because I love anything about New Orleans, the writer thorougly describes the fun and enjoyability of the heroine and her friends in this wonderful city. It is a mystery but that isn't why I read this series. I like the characters and Carmela and her friend Ava are young, sassy and not afraid to get their designer shoes and duds dirty following up leads. I can read any mystery and do, some of which are far better than these as far as "mystery" goes but a fun, light series about a pretty yet spunky and talented young woman who is very likeable as well as her friends at Mardi Gras time and other holidays in New Orleans, plus the food recipes and descriptions of the unique food in that area are a plus. Even though I don't scrapbook, I find the projects and ideas that they do in the book interesting. Overall, other than Shamus, her hopefully really true soon-to-be ex-husband, the books are a series I like and will continue to read.

Laura Childs' DEATH SWATCH will also prove a popular pick, blending scrapbooking crafts, Louisiana recipes, and New Orleans intrigue under one cover. Scrapbook shop owner Carmela Bertrand fears for her own life on a wild night which includes murder, especially as theories to the murder are wild. Throw in a stalking and a handsome detective's investigation of odd clues and you have a fast-paced mystery indeed.