About this item
The next charming mystery from Carolyn Haines featuring spunky southern private investigator Sarah Booth Delaney. Dr. Frank Hafner is an archeologist working on excavating a new-found Native American temple site in the Mississippi Delta. He's also too handsome for his own good, and a bit of a flirt. Oddly enough, it's the first quality that gets him in trouble when he discovers the ritualistic murder of one of his archeological crew. When Coleman Peters, Sheriff and Sarah Booth's boyfriend, takes Dr. Hafner in for questioning in the murder, the accused doctor hires Sarah Booth to clear his name.Soon, Sarah Booth has uncovered a number of possible suspects, but she can't narrow them down fast enough to stem the continuing violence that seems to trace back to Dr. Hafner's dig. When Peter Deerstalker, a member of the Tunica tribe, mentions a curse, it doesn't seem so far-fetched--especially when a young graduate student on the site claims someone on the site is searching for something much more precious than ancient pottery... Something spooky is going on in the Mississippi Delta, and though Sarah Booth isn't sure who to trust, or what to believe, she knows she won't rest until she's dug up the truth.
About the Author
When I was growing up in the small town of Lucedale, Mississippi, I had big dreams. I wanted to be a cowgirl, a writer, and Nancy Drew. Life has surely thrown me more than a few twists, but dreams are hard to destroy. Today, I'm all three-sort of. Of course the only mysteries I solve are in Zinnia, Mississippi. And I have the help of Sarah Booth Delaney, Tinkie, Cece, Coleman, Millie and a host of other characters. They'll be quick to tell you they do all the hard work-I'm just the writer.As to the horses, I have three. But no cows. I'm a little too tenderhearted. If I had a herd of cows, they'd live with me until they died of old age. But I do have the horses, Miss Scrapiron, a Thoroughbred, Mirage, a half-Arabian, and Cogar, a Thoroughbred-Connemara cross.In the dog department, I have my very own Sweetie Pie, a red tic hound; Maybelline, a tall beagle; Zelda, a husky; and Rosie, a red dog. All of the dogs are strays, as are the cats, Miss Vesta, Gumbo, Poe, Chester, and Maggie.A lot of people ask me how I started writing about the Mississippi Delta. My hometown, Lucedale, is way down in the Southeast corner of the state. That section is called the pine barrens, and it lives up to its name. Pine trees are a cash crop, and thousands of acres were once owned by the big paper companies. It's a world very different from the Mississippi Delta.My first visit to the Delta was as a photojournalist. I went to Parchman State Prison to do a newspaper story. Parchman was notorious at that time, and I can still remember the terrible desolation I felt when I looked out and saw mile after mile of heat and cotton. But the Delta also has fabulous wealth. And it has the blues. I knew then, at the age of 21, that I would one day write about that land of stark contrasts and strange beauty.Sarah Booth and Jitty came to me in tandem, arguing just as they do in the books. When such fully developed characters visit a writer, it's truly a gift. I didn't know Sarah Booth was a private investigator-in fact she didn't either-until I'd started writing the book (Them Bones) . Now, it's become my challenge to give her interesting cases to solve.Before I wrote fiction I worked for nearly a decade as a journalist. That experience has been invaluable as a writer. It was a fabulous life for a young woman, and I had some terrific adventures. I once covered an armed robbery on horseback and on another occasion had to climb a tree to cover a hostage situation in a graveyard. It's a good thing I was a tomboy growing up.Along with riding my bicycle, building forts in the woods with my brothers, playing baseball and touch football, and getting into mischief, I also spent a lot of time with my grandmother. She lived with us when I was a child, and she was a wonderful storyteller. She'd emigrated from Sweden when she was six, and she had a host of stories that kept me riveted for hours.Many of the stories my grandmother told were ghos
