You'll Dig the Faye Longchamp Archaeological Mystery Series

Faye Longchamp’s lineage has managed to keep the old Joyeuse plantation in their family for over a century, from the time Faye’s great-grandmother Cally, a newly freed slave, inherited it after the Civil War to the 21st century. 

Determined to keep it that way amid rising Florida property taxes, Faye resolves to excavate her property in search of artifacts she can sell on the black market.

But Faye gets more than she bargained for when one of her digs unearths a shattered human skull…

Faye Longchamp has returned to graduate school to pursue her dream of becoming an archaeologist, but her first assignment has her questioning her decision. The Sujosa people have lived in isolation in the remote hills of Alabama for centuries, notably immune to many diseases, like AIDs. 

Faye and her team are sent to investigate the source of their immunity, but when a string of mysterious tragedies seem targeted at slowing the project’s development, Faye is left to wonder if some questions are better left unexplored…

Faye Longchamp and her partner, Joe Wolf Mantooth, head to Neshoba County, Mississippi, to help excavate a site near Nanih Waiya, the sacred mound said to be the birthplace of the Choctaw nation.

When they arrive, they are dismayed to find that farmer Caroll Calhoun not only refuses their request to excavate on his land, but attempts to bulldoze the mound. 

Not long after, Calhoun is found dead, his throat slit with a handmade stone blade.

Was it retribution from a scorned archaeologist? A member of the Choctaw nation? Or someone else from Calhoun’s past entirely?

Faye Longchamp is happy to be back at Joyeuse, but her elation is cut short when her friend and mentor, Douglass Everett, is killed by burglars in his home. Strangely enough, the only thing missing from Douglass’s collection of priceless artifacts and art is Faye’s field notes.

Why?

A subsequent murder gives Faye a clue only she can decipher, one that leads her on a treasure hunt deep into the past, from Marie Antoinette to the Confederacy.

The closer she comes to solving the mystery, the more she realizes it’s only a matter of time before the killer is no longer satisfied with her field notes—and comes for Faye instead. 

When Faye and her team of archeologists discover a fresh corpse during a dig in New Orleans, the police deem it another tragic victim of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation.

That is, until Faye’s archaeological knowledge of the debris on top of the victim proves otherwise. Someone dumped this body here after the fact, and it’s up to Faye to find out who—if the killer doesn’t get to them first.

Newly-wed Faye Longchamp and Joe Wolf Mantooth have founded an archaeological firm. Their first client: Dunkirk Manor, an elegant B&B in a historic St. Augustine home.

Their first day on the job, a young man disappears, leaving behind a smear of blood in her car, a collection of priceless artifacts, and a note asking Faye for help.  

As Faye and Joe dig for answers on Dunkirk Manor’s property, they find artifacts from every era of St. Augustine’s complex, often dark, history, all the way back to its founding in 1565.

While translating the newly-discovered journal of a Spanish missionary, Faye unearths terrifying secrets from the city’s past that some people would no doubt rather leave buried…

Faye Longchamp and her husband’s small archaeological firm are swamped by the fallout of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, as Faye and her team race to excavate a site on the Mississippi delta soon to be flooded with oil.

When their childcare falls through, local teen Amanda comes to their rescue—just in time for Faye and Joe to return the favor. 

Amande’s life is turned upside down when her grandmother and legal guardian is murdered, along with her good-for-nothing uncle. 

As Amande’s two remaining relatives battle over her small inheritance, including a run-down houseboat and a tiny, uninhabitable island, her plight intertwines with Faye’s research in unexpected ways. 

The pirates whose doubloons Faye finds may be long gone, but one thing’s for certain: Louisiana is still being plundered. 

While on assignment in Rosebower, a rural New York town founded by Spiritualists, Faye and her daughter are invited by a member of the group to communicate with the other side.

Faye entertains the idea, unprepared for the shocking revelations Tilda Armistead’s crystal ball shows her. 

Things only get stranger when, just one hour later, Tilda is murdered, burnt alive in her own home. Her sister, meanwhile, gradually succumbs to a mysterious illness.

As clairvoyants and charlatans compete for power in Tilda’s absence, it’s up to Faye to figure out who killed Tilda—and who’s next.

Faye Longchamp-Mantooth and her husband, Joe, are both struggling with a deep loss that leaves each feeling isolated at Joyeuse, an island whose solitude usually feels peaceful.

What remains of that peaceful solitude is shattered when a close friend at the local marina becomes the latest victim of a string of murders that have rocked the women of Micco County.

It feels like Joyeuse has been infiltrated, not only by the murderer but by the law enforcement and environmentalists who claim to have come there to help.

As Joe tries to protect Faye from inner demons and external threats, Faye dives deep into her family’s history for clues before their life at Joyeuse is upended forever. 

Faye and Joe Longchamp-Mantooth traveled to Sylacauga, Oklahoma to help Joe’s father, Sly Mantooth, scatter his mother’s ashes. To pay for the trip, the couple accept a job consulting the reopening of a dig site shuttered three decades prior when archaeologist Dr. Sophia Townsend went missing from it. 

When a pile of clay-colored bones unearthed at the site prove to be those of Dr. Townsend, Faye once again goes from consulting archaeologist to detective. Who killed Dr. Townsend? And why does everyone in Sylacauga—even Joe’s father—seem to know something about the deceased doctor, who apparently had a reputation for deceit and manipulation? 

In a case where everyone has a motive, it’s up to Faye to get through the bottom of things with her marriage—and her life—in one piece. 

While in Memphis for a job, Faye encounters a little girl wandering along the creek, seemingly too young to be left alone. The next day, Faye uncovers an alarming clue as to why she was: a dying woman, buried alive near the same spot Faye saw the girl. 

Faye feels protective of the now-orphaned little girl, Kali, though both Kali’s struggling community and the Memphis police are suspicious of Faye.

Still, Faye stays, serving as a point of communication between Kali’s grieving community and the police, who never seem to listen to them. 

When Faye learns that Kali’s mother’s death is not an isolated incident, and the negligent police refuse to broaden their investigation, Faye takes it upon herself to track down this suspected serial killer before he strikes again. 

Faye is in Oklahoma City for a conference celebrating Indigenous arts, but when an explosion at the hotel hosting it reveals subterranean tunnels underneath, Faye has no choice but to shift her focus. 

A century ago, these chambers housed Chinese immigrants, and Faye is fascinated by the relics of the 20th century they hold—that is, until she discovers the bodies of three children…

When her dear friend, Captain Edward Eubank, is found drowned off the coast of Joyeuse, Faye Longchamp-Mantooth is as suspicious as she is heartbroken.

She had never known him to scuba dive, so why was he found wearing scuba gear? And why was there not a single trace of the shipwreck he’d claimed to have found? Where was the treasure worth killing over?

Faye is embroiled in more than another murder mystery. The very landscape of Joyeuse has been altered by a major hurricane, and Faye’s daughter seems to falling for a man who may be very dangerous.

Faye is going to have to go behind law enforcement’s back if she wants to bring her friend’s death to justice—and protect her daughter from the same fate.