A Place Unchanged — George Joseph Sanchez

The third Jeff Chaussier mystery finds Jeff returning to New Orleans. This time he has marriage on his mind. New Orleans, though, is far too seductive a lady and too wrapped in secrecy for a straightforward narrative to unfold. Things seem hopeful at the start. Bryna no longer has her brother's child to care for. Jeff is tired of the life of an itinerant actor and is also unusually flush with money from a London engagement. Things are on track, even though the flight home (his least favorite form of transportation) has left him woozy from self-medication. He wakes to an uncertain morning, unclear whose bed it is he finds himself in. Luckily, it's Bryna who is obeying his mother instructions on what to do with him on arrival. Memory happily restored, Jeff lolls in bed as Bryna goes downstairs to prepare breakfast. Jeff expects a meal, not muffled screams and a slamming door. Dashing downstairs, he chases the intruders out the door, handicapped by his lack of clothing and irked that Bryna was taken in the same state. Obviously, he has to call on his family and friends to get her back. Before he can, he dives into a sea of alcohol where he finds interesting new acquaintances from Indiana who want to tour the bars and a literary co-ed who wants to instruct him in other arts. With the help of his family and friends and some new acquaintances who are friends of a stockbroker and a doctor he is able to function again. His boozy excursion means that the trail has gone cold until a hurried postcard from Bryna sends him north across Lake Pontchartrain to the rolling hills of horse country and south of New Orleans to the trackless swamps. Allies turn up in both places but Jeff still needs the good services of a quiet, but efficient Sheriff and a swamp rat with multiple names and odd connections. Bryan's rescue is ready, except for the unfortunate appearance of a monster storm that renders the swamps impassable for all except the foolhardy, a description that seems written for Jeff and his friends. An interesting cast tackles the swamps: an ex-Marine female impersonator, Skinny, who isn't, "Paul Bunyan" who has no blue ox, a gospel singing mother and daughter, and the provident misplacing of supplies and boats by the Sheriff's Office. Bryan's captors are armed and dangerous. The storm is fierce. Their chances are small. Exactly the right circumstances for this group of untraditional extroverts. The storm once conquered, another trip across the lake to horse country is needed to ace a group with automatic weapons and a will to use them. That's of no concern to Jeff who has interesting friends who, in turn, have even more interesting friends. If all works out, the landscape will be clear for Jeff and Bryna to take that trip down the aisle before sailing away on that romantic honeymoon. Won't they? Nothing is ever quite that clear cut in a Jeff Chaussier mystery. Nor are New Orleans mysteries that easily resolved. The city and its inhabitants are too quirky and their surrounding aura too exotic. The only thing to do is to hop on for the the fastest-paced, widest-ranging Jeff Chaussier tale to date.