On April 22, 1896, Martin Begnaud was brutally murdered in his general store in Scott Station, Louisiana. Ten months later, after one of the most extensive manhunts in nineteenth-century Louisiana, public shock and outrage re-emerged 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. 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.