Bones of a Feather

April 11, 2011
At the start of Haines's entertaining 11th Sarah Booth Delaney mystery (after 2010's Bone Appetit), Sarah and her detecting partner, Tinkie Bellcase Richmond, agree to help sisters Monica and Eleanor Levert of Natchez, Miss., obtain the insurance payoff for their purloined $4 million heirloom necklace. Having sworn off dangerous cases, both investigators figure proving a high stakes but simple theft should be a breeze. Alas, the evil deeds of no-good ancestor Barthelme Levert hang over Briarcliff, the family estate overlooking the Mississippi, which is haunted by a phantom horse and rider that even the longtime gardener can't seem to get a good look at. Meanwhile, the Leverts' cousin and supposed sole heir, Millicent Gentry, schemes to gain the Levert fortune, even as a drop-dead gorgeous newcomer purports to be Monica's abandoned-at-birth son. In the end, Sarah and Tinkie must strive to thwart a plan of brilliantly diabolical proportions.

March 15, 2011

A lesson in lying, Mississippi style.

Monica and Eleanor Levert, the last two surviving members of the Natchez clan founded by slave-trading blackguard Barthelme, ask the Delaney Detective Agency to help prove that the family's ruby necklace, valued at $4 million, has been stolen. Partners Sarah Booth and Tinkie, thinking the job will be safe, easy, quick and no cause for their menfolk to fret about them, agree to prepare a report for the insurance company. They've barely parked their blood-red Cadillac under the Levert portico when Eleanor reports that Monica has been kidnapped by a man who demands the insurance money as ransom. Agreeing to handle the arrangements, Sarah Booth and Tinkie, along with their faithful four-legged companions, Sweetie Pie and Chablis, are soon up to their southern accents in tall tales. Some are told by a devilishly handsome rogue claiming that he's a Levert heir because he's Monica's illegitimate son, others by Millicent, a distant cousin who thinks she's entitled to some largesse from the sisters. And there's still more. Lolly the gardener is hiding his romantic trysts, Kissie the housekeeper is letting the rogue stay in a house wing unannounced, and a historian descended from a dupe of Barthelme plans a tell-all book. A stallion gallops across the plantation. A body falls off the plantation cliff. Jitty, the ghost who tweaks Sarah Booth about her love life, keeps appearing as pairs of sisters. Lies as thick as the Natchez humidity ultimately lead to two death scenes, several disappearances and a scam within a scam that almost causes Tinkie and Sarah Booth their lives.

Haines (Bone Appetit, 2010, etc.) diverts the reader from plot inconsistencies with great dollops of charm.

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May 1, 2011

Jewelry isn't the only thing missing in PI Sarah Booth Delaney's (Bone Appetit) latest case.

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