Once upon a Place

In 1922, Giselle O'Connell Richards is among the residents (White, Black, New Orleans French Creole, American Midwestern, mosquitoes, alligators, and a wild boar named Man O' War) of Lake Badin, Louisiana, located on the northern edge of the Cameron Parish chenier marsh. A young WWI widow and half-owner of Lake Badin's weekly newspaper, The Independent, Giselle fits the name of the paper, as weekly she skewers all things that she considers unjust, or simply inane in Lake Badin: chief among them the Captain of the Krewe of the Corsairs, Frank (Rabbit) Cotton III, a man who will take on anything that smells of money-including blackmail. Something Giselle discovers when her aunt is stopped on her way to murder Rabbit. To save her aunt, Giselle decides to fight fire with fire, never dreaming that she'll be caught in the firestorm herself.