Greedy Bones-Carolyn Haines

Greedy Bones
Carolyn Haines
Minotaur, Jul 7 2009, $24.95
ISBN: 9780312377106

The CDC agents come to Zinnia, Mississippi where a nasty illness is leaving people in comas on the brink of death. A drama queen by DNA, Sarah Booth Delaney also travels to Zinnia, her hometown to help friends and family cope. The actress and private investigator stays at her family’s ancestral home while worrying about her P.I. partner and best friend Tinkie Richmond, whose husband Oscar has caught the illness.

Tinkie tells Sarah Booth that Oscar became deathly ill after visiting the Carlisle cotton plantation; a place overwhelmed by weird boll weevils, a mold, and a curse. Sarah Booth intrigued by the horror film like script of reality; has her Hollywood boyfriend Graf Milieu take a breather preferably on the West Coast. She prefers one hunk at a time and that is handsome Sheriff Coleman Peters who she teams up with to investigate while the deaths pile up; ironically not from the disease, but from the usual southern custom of shootings and hangings.

The latest Sarah Booth tale may be the best in this fun lighthearted paranormal mystery series (see WISHBONES). The story line is fast-paced while the heroine is her usual courageous madcap investigative self; who knows that all native Mississippians understand you heed the family haint’s advice though you do not understand what in hell the spirit is saying, you distrust Fed or state theories but trust intelligent design theories of mama, and you avoid cursed plantations as if they are quarantined. Fans will enjoy GREEDY BONES as Sarah Booth is on the case.

Harriet Klausner