When a renovation crew tears into the walls of a 19th-century Creole cottage in the Tremé, they find a sealed tin box containing a hand-drawn map, a lock of hair tied with indigo thread, and a photograph of a woman no one can identify. The next morning, the historian who came to examine the find is dead in the courtyard.
Margaux Delacroix is a retired archivist who spent thirty years in the Louisiana Division of the New Orleans Public Library. She lives in the Bywater with a one-eyed orange tabby named Boudreaux. She writes mysteries because she believes every old house keeps secrets, and most of them are worth finding. She does not drink tea.