2011 - Mississippi Author Award Winner "Evans has written a fascinating tale linking the history of New Orleans' levee system to the present and weaving into the story aspects of the city's widely diverse cultures." —Booklist STARRED review Centuries of tragedy shadow New Orleans: wars, slavery, and a monumental flood that killed a thousand people and still threatens to wash all that history away. Faye Longchamp and her team of archaeologists, fighting to save New Orleans' past, are horrified when they discover a corpse that's far too new to be an archaeological find. The police presume it's just another dead body in the long, sad sequence of bodies left by Hurricane Katrina, until Faye shows them a truth that only an archaeologist could see: the debris piled on top of the dead woman is all wrong. Someone brought Shelly Broussard to this flooded-out house and left her dead body behind. Faye and her assistant Joe Wolf Mantooth are drawn into the investigation by a detective who believes their professional expertise is critical to the case. They quickly learn that trouble swirled around the victim like winds around the eye of a hurricane. Is Shelly's heroic rescue work in the aftermath of Katrina the reason for her death? Or does the sheaf of photos in her work files hold the answer? Will Faye and Joe be the next victims engulfed in this deadly deception?

2012 - Florida Book Award Bronze Medal Winner for General Fiction 2012 - Florida Book Award Bronze Medal Winner for Popular Fiction "Details of archaeology, pirate lore, and voodoo complement the strong, sympathetic characters, especially Amande, and the appealing portrait of Faye's family life." —Booklist Faye Longchamp and her Native American husband Joe Wolf Mantooth are working near the mouth of the Mississippi, researching archaeological sites soon to be flooded by oil. The Deepwater Horizon disaster has morphed her run-of-the-mill contract job into a task that might swamp her fledgling consulting business. Then her injured babysitter leaves Faye to work with a toddler underfoot. Thankfully, Amande, a bright and curious teen lives nearby with her eccentric grandmother. But when the girl's grandmother and her no-account uncle are murdered, Amande's prospects worsen. The girl has but two known relatives, both battling over her small inheritance: a raggedy houseboat, a few shares of stock, and a hurricane-battered island that's not even inhabitable. Pirate-era silver coins are found and disappear. A murderer is on the loose, and as the oil slick looms, Faye can see that Louisiana is still being plundered....

Top 12 Mystery Novels of 2017 by Strand Magazine 2018 - Willa Literary Award Finalist, Contemporary Fiction "Evans' signature archaeological lore adds even more interest to this tale of love, hate, and greed." —Kirkus Reviews A woman waits under five feet of dirt—a woman who is by now nothing but bones stained the deep red of Oklahoma clay. A delicate silver necklace, a handful of ancient pearls, and a priceless figurine rest with her. Twenty-nine years is a long time to wait for a proper burial. Faye Longchamp-Mantooth, who runs a small and shakily financed archaeological consulting firm with her husband, Joe, has come to Sylacauga so she and Joe can join his father, Sly Mantooth, in dispersing his mother's ashes. Fifteen years is a long time to wait for a proper ceremony. Faye has partially financed the trip by hiring on to consult on the reopening of a site closed down 29 years ago when archaeologist Dr. Sophia Townsend disappeared—for good. The Muscogee (Creek) Nation intends to create a park if nothing sacred lies in the soil. What no one expects is the lonely red bones that emerge as the backhoe completes its work. Inevitably they prove to be those of Sophia Townsend. And examination shows Sophia was first killed by a blow to the head. Chief Roy Cloud of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation's Lighthorse Tribal Police hires Faye, who clearly can't be a suspect, to consult. Which is fine with Faye, who won't rest easy until Sophia's murder is solved. But the investigation comes uncomfortably close to home when she learns that her father-in-law knows more about the dead woman than he is willing to admit. So, it appears, does everyone in tiny Sylacauga. Dr. Sophia Townsend had possessed a sexual magnetism as forceful as an Oklahoma tornado, and she had never hesitated to use it to manipulate everyone around her, people whose hearts she broke and whose marriages she destroyed. Was she killed by one of her lovers, or by one of their wives? Or by the woman who became enthralled with her? Or maybe Sly Mantooth? Or was something else elemental—greed, buried treasure, fame—at work? Faye's obsession with this case tests her professional ethics and it tests her marriage. Such was the power of Sophia Townsend that, twenty-nine years after her murder, she wreaks havoc (along with the weather) once again. 2018 - Oklahoma Book Award Finalist, Fiction 2018 - Will Rogers Bronze Medallion Award Winner, Western Fiction

"This contemporary mystery is drenched with Florida history and with gothic elements that should appeal to a broad range of readers." —Booklist 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 a 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....

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