Crossed Bones

“Carolyn Haines has done for the Delta what Janet Evanovich has done for New Jersey: taken regional comic sleuthdom to huge heights. ” * Carolyn Haines’ strongest mystery yet is now available in mass market paperback, just one month before her newest pulse-thumping mystery, Hallowed Bones, hits the shelves.* The State (AL)Sarah Booth Delaney uncovers skeletons in closets-and elsewhere-as she attempts to solve a murder that threatens to tear her beloved town in half.“This cozy read is the next best thing to curling up with a mint julep on the porch swing on a lazy afternoon.”-Publishers WeeklyA born-and-bred Mississippi belle, Sarah Booth Delaney is no ordinary P.I. And this was no ordinary murder. The dead man was Ivory Keys, a gifted Black pianist-and his murder has sparked the kind of racial divide Zinnia, Mississippi, hasn’t seen since the Civil War. After all, the prime suspect is Keys’s protege, Scott Hampton, a white rich boy turned racist-and Sarah Booth has been hired to prove he didn’t do it by no less than the victim’s widow.For a woman feeling a little heat of her own-navigating between a rich, available businessman, a married lawman with a waffling heart, and the sexy bluesman who is angling to become much more than her client-this case is taking some dangerous twists. A town’s slumbering passions have been awakened with a jolt, a matchmaking ghost is eyeing some promising suitors, and Sarah Booth is caught between her need to know the truth and the consequences it will have on her town-and on her life… .