BLACK DUST MAMBO

While attending her first May Madness Carnival, an annual bacchanalia in the ancient hills of Rome for the world's magic community, Kallie Riviere plans to take a well-deserved break from her hoodoo studies in the arms of a hard-muscled nomad conjurer; a conjurer who ends up dead in her blood-drenched bed.

"There will be times, girl, when all your magic ain't going to be enough, times when it will seem to dry up like mud under the noonday sun, or even make matters worse. . . ."

Kallie Rivière, a fiery Cajun hoodoo apprentice with a talent for trouble, finds herself smack-dab in the middle of one of those times her mentor warned her about when she visits New Orleans to attend the Hecatean Alliance's annual carnival: her hard-bodied conjurer hookup ends up dead in her blood-drenched bed. And he was killed by something that Kallie would never dream of touching - the darkest of dark juju, soul-eating juju - a black dust hex that may have been meant to kill her.

Now Kallie has to use every bit of hoodoo knowledge and bayou-bred mojo she possesses to clear her own name and find the killer - even as that dark sorcerer hunts Kallie and her friends. But Kallie's search for the truth soon leads her in a direction she never anticipated - back home to Bayou Cyprés Noir, and to Gabrielle LaRue, Kallie's aunt, protector, and hoodoo mentor . . . who is looking more and more like she just might be the one who wants Kallie dead.