Artifacts: A Faye Longchamp Mystery by Mary Anna Evans
All right, I’ll admit it: I’d been looking for free books in the Amazon Kindle store and came across this interesting cover and title. I’ve always loved archaeology and antiquities. The skeleton on the cover is what drew me in, plus I have a soft spot for female detectives, even reluctant ones like Faye Longchamp.
She’s a former archaeology student in Florida, living in her old ancestral home, Joyeuse hidden on a secluded island off the coast, living in secret. The island had been inhabited by ancestors for hundreds of years, therefore, to make ends meet (and pay taxes-the piper), she starts digging and selling items off her island and those that are closeby.
It seems she’s not the only one digging illegally around the Florida Islands. She soon comes across a decades old mystery when bodies start piling up around her beloved islands. In addition, she wants to stop a condo/resort development from coming in. With the help of her best friend Joe, an Indian scout and her old professor, they slowly come across the truth.
From the moment I started reading Artifacts, Mary Anna Evans had me hooked. She strikes the right balance of exposition, description, dialogue and action so the book is readable and relatable. We get the atmosphere around the Florida coast, the Islands without having to skim paragraphs of boring material. She weaves the people in and around the places so we don’t know we’re getting geography lessons.
The people themselves are believable, great physical, mental and emotional descriptions. I, for one, would love to go to the diner on the shore that Faye, Liz and Wally hang around. The cop, Mike, feels like a regular guy you could have a cup of joe with and Douglass is a self-made man who worked for all he has and has a terrible secret to keep.
I’ll be looking for more of Mary Anna Evans’ books.
Brick ONeil 