ARTIFACTS

Few corners of Florida remain unmined for crime fiction and now, happily, there's one less. The shifting little isles along the Florida Panhandle—hurricane-wracked bits of land filled with plenty of human history—serve as the effective backdrop for Evans's debut, a tale of greed, archeology, romance and murder. The latest in a long line of courageous and resourceful women, Faye Longchamp can trace her mixed ancestry back to a slave and a once magnificent plantation house, Joyeuse, which she now claims by heritage and squatter's rights and whose very existence is a closely guarded secret. Faye ekes out a living by illegal "pothunting" and acting as an assistant on a legitimate archeological dig, but her discovery of a human skull and the subsequent murder of two archeology students threaten her precarious existence. While Evans stretches credulity with the sheer number of unlikely elements that make up the plot, including a mysterious Indian and a 19th-century diary, the rich setting and the lively characters that aid or bedevil Faye in her quest more than compensate. Readers should welcome this strong new heroine. (May 2)