Strangers

By Mary Anna Evans

Faye Longchamp and husband Joe Wolf Mantooth have founded an archaeological consulting firm - just in time for the economy to tank. But a meeting with a couple who run an elegant B&B in an historic home in St. Augustine, Florida, lands the firm’s first big project. Within a day of their arrival at Dunkirk Manor, a lovely young employee disappears, leaving behind a sinister smear of blood in her car, a collection of priceless artifacts, and a note asking for Faye's help. Two days later, the missing woman's boyfriend is found floating in the Matanzas River, his throat slashed. The detective in charge of the case believes that the artifacts are key to the crime and hires Faye to track down their origin.

The artifacts Faye and Joe excavate at their work site date from every era of St. Augustine history, and the discovery of a buried cache of children's toys from the 1920s hits eight-months-pregnant Faye particularly hard. Dunkirk Manor seems haunted in a way that Faye can't explain.

Then a stunning discovery is made: the diary of a priest who left Spain in 1565 and was present at the city's birth. Faye is driven to translate the manuscript. In what could be an unfolding tale by the Brothers Grimm, Faye and Joe uncover some terrible secrets....

• Language: English
• Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
• Release date: Sep 30, 2010
• ISBN: 9781615952366

Mary Anna Evans

Mary Anna Evans is the author of the Faye Longchamp archeological mysteries, which have won the Benjamin Franklin Award, the Mississippi Author Award, and three Florida Book Awards bronze medals. The winner of the 2018 Sisters in Crime (SinC) Academic Research Grant, she is an assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma, where she teaches fiction and nonfiction writing.

Reviews for Strangers

[liscarey · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is Evans' sixth novel about archeologist Faye Longchamp and her husband Joe Wolf Mantooth. I haven't read any of the others, and didn't find it an obstacle to following and enjoying this story. Faye has turned her archeology degree into a business rather than a tenure-track teaching position, and she, Joe, and their employees, including Magda Stockard-McKenzie, Ph.D., are in St. Augustine, FL, excavating the back yard of the Art Deco-era mansion, Dunkirk Manor, whose current owners want to add a swimming pool. Dunkirk Manor is in a historically rather uninteresting section of St. Augustine, and it'a a relatively easy assignment, perfect for the last month or so of Faye's pregnancy. An unexpected bonus is the discovery, in a storeroom, of the journal of a priest, Father Domingo, who accompanied the first Spanish expedition to the St. Augustine area.

Or so it seems, at least until Glynis Smithson, assistant to the owners, Daniel and Suzanne Wrather, disappears. Her car is parked out back, there's some blood in her car and a lot more just outside it--and if there was any trail of blood leading away from the car, it has possibly been washed away by the automatic sprinklers. There are also a few odd items in and near the car, artifacts apparently dating to the 16th-century arrival of the Spanish.

Faye becomes involved in the investigation into Glynis's disappearance, which becomes a murder investigation when her boyfriend turns up dead, because of the archeological connection. At the same time, the excavation at Dunkirk Manor becomes more interesting, as they uncover evidence of a previous swimming pool, as well as buried 1920s-era children's toys in what looks very like a small shrine. As Faye learns more about both her employers and the 1920s owners, she discovers an unsolved murder of a beautiful starlet, and an odd parallel between Suzanne and her great-aunt Allyce Dunkirk, in that they both lost very young children whom they continued to mourn many years later. The archeological items and the fact that her boyfriend was murdered leads to the suspicion that Glynis was murdered or kidnapped because she discovered a construction project going forward illegally after discovering an unreported archeological site.

Faye divides her attention amongst the Dunkirk Manor dig, Father Domingo's journal, the unsolved murder, and Glynis's disappearance, and they all tangle together in unexpected ways. And when she gets too close to some of the answers, the situation turns dangerous, and she's fighting for her life against an unexpected villain.

I found Strangers engrossing and highly readable, and I'll probably be looking for more of Evans's books about Faye.


Note:: I received a free electronic galley from the publisher via NetGalley

[bookswoman · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm still loving this series. Faye and Joe are fun characters with busy lives and interesting careers. Faye finally has her Ph.D. and is now running her own archeology business with a sideline in police consulting.

Set in St. Augustine there is a lot of wonderful history woven into the mystery, making the whole story deeper and richer.

While examining a site for a rich couple who want to put in a swimming pool Faye and her team find some interesting items, some of which are very puzzling. When one of the couple's employees disappears and her boyfriend turns up dead, Faye is on the trail to find out what is going on behind the walls of the elegant mansion.

At just 5 weeks from full term with her baby, Joe is over solicitous, Magda is worse and the owners are even driving her crazy. Faye has to try and figure out what is going on, complete her survey for the mansion's grounds, and keep her baby safe.

Loved this, and the added story of translating a 1500's journal gives the rich history of St. Augustine and its role in the settlement of what is now the United States.

[mmerose_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is an excellent addition to the series. Faye has grown tremendously in her professional life. She is also tremendously pregnant in this installment, an interesting perspective. I especially enjoyed the early history of St Augustine woven into the story.