Cities of the Dead — Linda Barnes

AT MARDI GRAS EVEN THE DEAD CAN'T REST....
Steam rises from the streets and strippers dance in light as bleary as a drunk's vision. But actor and part-time private eye Michael Spraggue didn't come to New Orleans to gawk. He's trying to get an innocent woman off the hook for killing her ex-husband with a fine French cooking knife.

Con man, bigamist, thief, and chef, Joseph Fontenot had lived enough lives for several men and left a full menu of enemies behind. But if Dora Levoyer didn't kill him, who did?

Hired by his redoubtable aunt Mary -- for whom Dora worked as a cook -- Spraggue is determined to find out. And now he's following a raven-haired young beauty and a trail of broken vows, black magic, and blackmail into one of New Orleans' cities of the dead: a local cemetery where an extra body has been found in a centuries-old mausoleum. As the smell of Cajun food fills the air and Mardi Gras erupts on the streets, Spraggue digs up a dark family secret that still has the power to kill....