Reviewed by Dan
TITLE: Murder in the Garden District
SERIES: Chanse MacLeod Mysteries #5
AUTHOR: Greg Herren
PUBLISHER: Bold Stroke Books
LENGTH: 256 Pages
BLURB:
The Sheehans are referred to as “Louisiana’s Kennedys,” a powerful political dynasty with connections in Baton Rouge and Washington. When Warren Sheehan is shot to death in his Garden District mansion, Chanse races to sort out the truth from the many lies surrounding the great family as another hurricane puts New Orleans squarely in its cross hairs.
REVIEW:
I’m going to be honest right up front and tell you that this installment in the Chanse MacLeod stories didn’t really do it for me. It was too much a political family, mainstream murder mystery for me. Although Chanse is still gay, there was very little mention of it in the story and the plot of the book made it almost negligible. And why would they put a picture of a young white guy in ropes on the cover? There isn’t a character in the book (unless I missed it) that fits this person!
I also didn’t like the continued references to Chanse’s mother, and then not actually finding out what was up with the woman until almost at the end of the book, kind of as an after-thought, and then we got so few details that I felt cheated.
Finally, I didn’t like the made up hurricane. I live on the Gulf Coast of Southwest Florida, and every storm that hits the northern coast of the Gulf either comes over our heads, or to the west of us in the Gulf. I’m not sure why Mr. Herren felt the need to make up a hurricane when we have so many real ones he could have used. He mentions Hurricane Gustav in his author’s notes at the end. Why didn’t he use that as the hurricane in the book?
OK, enough grumbling, on to the story. We’re back with Chanse MacLeod for another mystery. The son of the Sheehan political dynasty has been shot and killed. His mother was found with the smoking gun, which she had just shot into the floor. If this sounds familiar, it is because it is if you’ve read the whole series. Think back to his murdered lover, Paul, finding a gun, picking it up and shooting it into the floor and then being charged with murder. This time the powder residue wasn’t on the non-dominant hand like it was in Murder in the Rue St. Ann, but this time it was a society matron with the gun in her hand, so she wasn’t charged. And then for Chanse to have never acknowledged the similarity was beyond odd.
Chanse is hired to find someone, anyone not related to the family, that could have committed the murder. But the stories from the witnesses don’t jive, and to make matters worse, a bad guy, also from Murder in the Rue St. Ann, has shown up in New Orleans and is chasing Chanse for revenge.
I honestly never connected with this story at all. There were too many things that seemed jumbled together, and kind of retold with different characters. Although everything wrapped up nicely in the end, it is the first book of Mr. Herren’s that I’ve counted down to 0% with more a feeling of relief rather than one of despair.
The writing is still far above average, and Mr. Herren doesn’t write bad books. This one though, was not for me personally. Others might love it. I’m going to give it a 3.5 out of 5.0 stars. I liked it, it was above average, but I didn’t love it. Stay tuned next week for my review of book six in the series.
RATING: 
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