No Spark of Malice

<p>On April 22 1896 Martin Begnaud was brutally murdered in his general store in Scott Station Louisiana. He was bound gagged blindfolded stabbed more than fifty times and robbed of over $5000. Ten months later after one of the most extensive manhunts in nineteenth-century Louisiana public shock and outrage reemerged when two teenage brothers from France Ernest and Alexis Blanc were arrested for the crime. William Arceneaux sets the story of Begnaud's murder the Blanc brothers' trial and the media circus surrounding it all against the backdrop of Acadian history -- from the 1604 establishment of a French colony in the Canadian maritime provinces to the eventual creation of a "New Acadia"in South Louisiana. By intertwining a suspenseful account of this heinous crime with an exploration of the citizens it affected No Spark of Malice provides insight into a fascinating people place and era.</p>