That Old Black Magic (Piper Donovan Series #4)

by Mary Jane Clark

Overview

That Old Black Magic is New York Times bestselling author Mary Jane Clark’s savory and suspenseful confection filled with murder, mystery, history and voodoo, in which Piper Donovan must unmask a devious killer striking in New Orleans’s legendary French Quarter.

Aspiring actress and wedding-cake decorator Piper Donovan has barely arrived in New Orleans to perfect her pastry skills at the renowned French Quarter bakery, Boulangerie Bertrand, when a ghastly murder rocks the magical city. Intrigued by the case, Piper can’t help but look for the “Hoodoo Killer” among the faces around her. Could it be the handsome guide eager to give her special private tours? Or the inscrutable jazz musician who plays on historic Royal Street? What about the ratings-starved radio talk-show host? Or even the amiable owner of the local Gris-Gris Bar?

Though Piper has a full plate decorating cakes for upcoming wedding celebrations, she’s also landed an exciting but unnerving role in a movie being shot in the Big Easy. When the murderer strikes again, leaving macabre clues, she thinks she can unmask the killer. But Piper will have to conjure up some old black magic of her own if she hopes to live long enough to reveal the truth.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062135490
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	01/21/2014
Series:	Frontiers in Political Communications , #4
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	268
File size:	714 KB

About the Author

Mary Jane Clark worked at CBS News for nearly three decades. Her twelve KEY News media thrillers were inspired by that experience. Envisioning the Piper Donovan/Wedding Cake mystery series, Mary Jane enrolled in cake-decorating classes and researched unique wedding locations. The daughter of an FBI agent and a mother who customized cakes for the neighborhood kids when she was growing up, Mary Jane has two grown children and splits her time between New Jersey and Florida.

Editorial Reviews

12/09/2013
Clark’s suspenseful fourth Piper Donovan mystery (after 2013’s Footprints in the Sand) takes the baker/actress to New Orleans, where she’s thrilled to be working as a guest baker at Boulangerie Bertrand in the French Quarter. Piper also lands an acting role that requires her to play a character entombed alive in a casket. When someone goes on a murder spree in the vicinity of Boulangerie Bertrand, Piper’s boyfriend, FBI agent Jack Lombardi, urges her to get out of New Orleans as soon as possible, but she remains committed to finishing a wedding cake at the bakery. As the body count rises, locals connect the mysterious clues left at the crime scenes to voodoo, and the police consider no one above suspicion, even Piper. Amid a multitude of red herrings, the roller-coaster action builds to a most startling conclusion. Agent: Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, William Morris Endeavor. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

2013-12-22
Piper Donovan travels to yet another notable vacation spot to bake yet another wedding cake and gets tossed into yet another series of murders. While she ponders what sort of cake would best commemorate the nuptials of antique-shop assistant Sabrina Houghton and Leo Yancy, owner of Bistro Sabrina, Piper's staying with Sabrina's friends Bertrand and Marguerite Olivier, of Royal Street's Boulangierie Bertrand, so that she can pick up some authentic New Orleans baking techniques. What could be cozier--especially when Piper, ever the hopeful actress, gets cast as Channing Tatum's girlfriend? True, her character dies in the first reel, and the scene in which she realizes that she's been buried alive brings on traumatic memories of Piper's last brush with violent death (Footprints in the Sand, 2013, etc.). What really turns Piper's stay into a nightmare, though, is the murder of Muffuletta Mike, the neighboring butcher. Will the good people of Royal Street--Sabrina's boss, Ellinore Duchamps, her flirtatious nephew Falkner the tour guide, bartender Wuzzy Queen, street musician Cecil Gregson--band together to repel the killer or turn their backs long enough for Piper to become the next victim? Think Margaret Truman in the Big Easy with a recipe for beignets or a lesser Agatha Christie with an unusually imperiled heroine and just enough hints of voodoo for the tourist trade.

Kirkus Reviews