Author Night at Hubbell Library: Christi Keating Sumich

The Swamp Ghost

Set in 1830s New Orleans, the first of the Old New Orleans Bookshop Mysteries follows Mary Catherine Whitney, irascible wife, mother, and amateur sleuth, as she solves the mysteries police ignore.

Pirate ghosts are just legends. Until seeing one proves fatal.

In 1833, Irish immigrants are hard at work digging the New Basin Canal, a waterway that will connect New Orleans to Lake Pontchartrain. When one of the workers sees a strange blue orb glowing in the swamp at night, he fears it is a Fifolet (fee-foo-lay) guarding Jean Lafitte’s buried treasure. Legend has it that pirates killed a crewman and buried his body with their loot, dooming his ghost to stand guard forever. When the worker turns up dead the next morning, the men believe the site is cursed, and Aiden Doyle, the crew's leader, must uncover the truth or risk losing his job. When the newly formed police force refuses to investigate, Aiden seeks help from Mary Catherine Whitney, now renowned throughout New Orleans for her mystery-solving skills after she and her husband, Tobias, unraveled the secrets of the notorious pirate Jean Lafitte and wrote a popular adventure story about it. She’ll need all her cleverness and wit to unlock the secrets of the Fifolet, and she may even need a little help from Lafitte himself. 

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