ARC Review: Bayou Book Thief by Ellen Byron

Bayou Book Thief
Author: Ellen Byron
Series: A Vintage Cookbook Mystery
Publication: Berkley (June 7, 2022)

Description: A fantastic new cozy mystery series with a vintage flair from USA Today bestselling and Agatha Award–winning author Ellen Byron.

Twenty-eight-year-old widow Ricki James leaves Los Angeles to start a new life in New Orleans after her showboating actor husband perishes doing a stupid internet stunt. The Big Easy is where she was born and adopted by the NICU nurse who cared for her after Ricki’s teen mother disappeared from the hospital.

Ricki’s dream comes true when she joins the quirky staff of Bon Vee Culinary House Museum, the spectacular former Garden District home of late bon vivant Genevieve “Vee” Charbonnet, the city’s legendary restauranteur. Ricki is excited about turning her avocation – collecting vintage cookbooks – into a vocation by launching the museum’s gift shop, Miss Vee’s Vintage Cookbooks and Kitchenware. Then she discovers that a box of donated vintage cookbooks contains the body of a cantankerous Bon Vee employee who was fired after being exposed as a book thief.

The skills Ricki has developed ferreting out hidden vintage treasures come in handy for investigations. But both her business and Bon Vee could wind up as deadstock when Ricki’s past as curator of a billionaire’s first edition collection comes back to haunt her.

Will Miss Vee’s Vintage Cookbooks and Kitchenware be a success … or a recipe for disaster?

My Thoughts: BAYOU BOOK THIEF starts a new cozy series set in New Orleans. Ricki James-Diaz is starting over in the town where she was born and abandoned at birth. Raised in LA by loving adoptive parents, Ricki is recently widowed and has just lost her job cataloging a library for a man convicted of a ponzi scheme. 

She is starting over at Bon Vie, a mansion turned into to tourist attraction, where she will be running her own vintage cookbook and cookware store. She likes most of her new co-workers, but a couple of the tour guides are not friendly. Franklin Finbloch is a major complainer and a petty thief. Winifred Shexnyder is a tour guide who is always trying to guilt her tourists into giving her large tips and is also a snitch eager to get the rest of the employees in trouble.

When Franklin's corpse is delivered to Bon Vie in a trunk with a vintage can opener used as the murder weapon, Ricki is sure that her bad luck and notoriety make her the perfect suspect. She is eager to help the police find the actual murderer, but her overactive imagination leads in to odd conclusions.

The story was filled with great characters and had an interesting plot. I liked that it included recipes for readers to try from vintage cookbooks. Some of the ones mentioned in the story sounded pretty awful though. 

I'm looking forward to more books in this engaging and entertaining series. 

Favorite Quote:

"Why are you tiptoeing?"

"I don't know," Ricki said in a whisper.

"And why are you whispering? This is a crime scene, not a preschool nap."

"I don't know," Ricki said in a normal voice. "It just seemed appropriate."

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.