It is Halloween in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Carmela Bertrand, owner of Memory Mine Scrapbook Shop in the French Quarter, discovered the body of the owner of Oddities, the shop next door to Carmela. Marcus Joubert was stabbed by an unknown assailant. The first two calls she made were to her boyfriend, Detective Edgar Babcock and her best friend, Ava Gruiex. She also notified Mavis Sweet, Joubert’s assistant.

By the time an inventory was taken a number of items were missing from his shop, particularly Napoleon’s death mask which was in popular demand by collectors. The mask had been stolen three weeks before from a collector in Dallas, Texas, and now someone had stolen it from Joubert.

As soon as he was notified, Detective Edgar Babcock was immediately on the case. Less than twenty-four hours after Joubert’s death, a surprising visitor stopped in at Carmela’s shop to place an order. She insisted she was taking over Joubert’s building and had planned to for some time.

As Detective Babcock and his team continue to work on the case, Carmela conducts her own investigation although Babcock forbade her to get involved. Within twenty-four hours, more mayhem continues to cause problems for Carmela, so she and her friends go into overdrive to find out who is causing problems in their city, and why.

Gossamer Ghost, A Scrapbooking Mystery by Laura Childs is the twelfth novel in the series. Childs is also the author of the popular Tea Shop Mysteries (fifteen so far), Cackleberry Club Mysteries (five novels), and two anthologies.

Gossamer Ghost has a solid plot that keeps the fast-paced story moving forward. Childs makes good use of New Orleans as an interesting and exciting backdrop. That may be why there is a feeling the story is based in a large city even if the author doesn’t overly use that point. There is an excitement in the air that is felt by the reader and played out by colorful characters.

The story has a lot going on, especially the number of characters that are sometimes difficult to keep straight, at least for me. There wasn’t as much time spent on scrapbooking as usual, but the characters were busy doing other things, especially as it was Halloween and a murder to solve.

Fans will definitely look forward to the next installment of this interesting and fun cozy mystery series.

If you are interested in purchasing any of Laura Childs stories, they are available at Amazon.com.

A special thank you goes to Berkley Prime Crime for providing us a complimentary copy of Gossamer Ghost for our review.