The Slave Maker — Kathleen Morris

There's something not right.On any given day in 1883 New Orleans, at 416 Royal Street, you will find a black door and a discreet bronze plaque engraved with S&H Investigations, should you need such services. Within, you will be offered café au lait and beignets, and taken down a softly-lit passageway to meet Fiona Shanahan, a pretty young Irishwoman, and her associate, Michael Henley, a gentleman with a hard face but a kind smile. You will leave assured your troubles are in good hands. However, while charming, neither Fiona, Henley or S&H are quite who they purport to be.For three years, Fiona and Henley have taken excellent care of their clients at S&H, which is the public facade of Julius DeMonte Enterprises, serving clients rich and poor alike, no matter how trivial, fantastical or even illegal, their case may be. At their masquerade Halloween ball, Voodoo's Fete Gede, the Day of the Dead, Julius DeMonte returns from his summer showboat cruise down the Mississippi bringing his old friend, the mysterious Comte Saint Germain.The Comte is searching for an old lover who disappeared many years ago. Fiona and Henley set out to find her but instead discover a new and horrifying threat taking root among the plantations in the post-war Louisiana countryside, taking them and their friend Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans, on a dark and dangerous journey into the world of the undead.