Customer Reviews

Crossed Bones

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Carolyn Haines simply gets better with each new book in this series, and this one is superb. The plot is smoothly constructed, with the suspense building steadily throughout. The characters are well drawn, and Sarah Booth remains a fascinating, complex heroine. Having grown up near the Mississippi Delta, I feel like I'm going home every time I read one of these books.

The Mississippi Delta and her home Dahlia House are in Sara Booth's Delaney's blood. She will do almost anything in her power to keep them both, even work as a private detective. Almost anything excludes marrying a man from her social set and letting him take care of her even though Jitty, the ghost of her great great great grandmother nanny, wants the last Delaney married.

Sarah Booth is enjoying the land, her house and her dog when she is dragged into the homicide investigation of the famous blues musician, Ivory Keys. His wife Ida Mae Keys wants Sarah Booth to prove that while blues singer Scott Hampton didn't kill his friend and employer Ivory. The two men met in prison and shared a vision that music could be the bridge between the races. Circumstantial evidence points to Scott as the perpetrator and if Sarah Booth doesn't find the real perpetrator soon, the town of Zinnia will erupt into violence.

CROSSED BONES is a well-written colorful mystery that gives the reader some terrific insight into the workings of a small southern town. The heroine is strong, independent and straightforward, and not your typical southern belle; while her partner is all those things and lends a sense of comic relief to the plot when it begins to boil. Sarah Booth is attracted to the bad boy musician but not enough to give him her heart while the man she really wants reconciles with his wife. Readers will empathize and sympathize with the heroine, hoping she will get the perpetrator and collect her fee.

Harriet Klausner

Sarah Booth is hired by the widow of bluesman Ivory Keyes to prove that his protegee, former white supremacist rapper, now blues guitarist Scott Hampton. Scott doesn't want to be cleared of the murder and at first seems to be guilty. Sarah has problems in her personal life as usual, Coleman has gone back to his wife, again, and Tinkie is trying to set her up with a handsome millionaire. Scott has a fan of his own, crazy Nandy, who was raised to believe that she is the heir to the Scottish throne. Ivory's murder has caused racial unrest among the local population. This isn't helped by the arrival of two of Scott's prison buddies. This case is going to take all of Sarah Booth's talent to solve, even without the personal attacks and the distractions of the "Delaney Womb", and Scott Hampton most definitely is a distraction.

As usual Ms. Haines has produced a funny and gripping mystery. There are many great suspects, and the quirky characters of Sunflower County are as crazy as ever. I can't wait to read the next one.

And no wonder. Sarah Booth, our Mississippi broke-but-upper-class private investigator, has three romantic interests in this book: the sheriff, who is married; a wealthy businessman who is pursuing her; and a bad-boy blues musician who is charged with a vicious killing -- he's her client.

So -- although there was mystery at the beginning and mystery at the end, most of the middle seemed to be romance. If you like a lot of romance, you'll probably really like this book, but if you're more of a fan of mysteries, you may find all of Sarah Booth's dates and endless soul-searching about who is the man for her, etc. rather tedious after a while.

The plot involves racial tensions in the Mississippi delta town of Zinnia. A black man who owns a blues club has been viciously killed, and the white man who is the star musician in the club (they met in the penitentiary) is accused of killing him. The black man's wife hires Sarah Booth to prove that Scott the star musician didn't commit this murder. Scott has an unsavory past as a racist (not to mention the stretch behind bars) and he's belligerant and rude, but Sarah Booth comes to believe that he is indeed innocent and sets out to find the proof. The motive for this murder is the key to solving the crime, if she can only find out why he was killed.

Racial tensions are rising in Zinnia, and a lot of people are not happy that Sarah Booth has taken this case, so she is in some jeopardy herself. The dead man's son Emmanuel is convinced Scott killed his father and wants to see him convicted, but Emmanuel is a racist in his own right.

I really enjoyed Them Bones, so I picked up this book expecting to be equally delighted. I wasn't. As I said earlier, too much time spent on romances and too little on the mystery. This book could have been shortened by at least 50 pages and would have been improved. I think that the author needs to let the editor edit. I will try another of this author's mysteries to see if this book was the exception, or Them Bones was.

I have been a faithful reader Ms. Haines, but this time, she did not come through. The main character of the books, Sarah Booth Delaney, has turned out to be too much of a slut. In love with a married man!!! Where is the true Southern Belle, don't kiss and tell?? By the time Sarah drops her panties, and she drops them all the time, the whole town knows about it. Does Sarah have everyone in town on speed-dial? A southern lady - Sarah is not! I don't believe I can struggle through another book.

Sarah Booth is an engaging heroine. She is a PI, and a bit of a slut, and you have to love her and Tinkie, as well as Madame Tomeeka, the recurring psychic; Sweetie Pie, her dog; and Reveler, her horse. Jitty, the resident ghost, is a bit of a pain, and rather tiring, but all in all, this was a well-written cozy. You can just feel the delta heat burning!! I'll be back for more.

Sarah Booth Delaney is not your typical southern belle. She started a P.I. business to hold on to her family's plantation. She is the last in the line of Delaney's with no sign of a progeny in sight much to the chagrin of a resident ghost named Jitty. Jitty is around to give Sarah Booth a hard time and to add the comic relief. Haines has created a witty, well-written novel rich in southern charm and atmosphere. The character relationships work as well as if not better than the mystery. I was a little disappointed at the conclusion of the book. If the author had not taken the easy way out at the end I would have given the book 5 stars.

I highly recommend this book... buy it, you will not regret it! Carolyn Haines is a fantastic author.

Just wonderfully enjoyable reading. This series is quirky (a ghost with a past we have yet to be told), a decaying but well loved southern mansion as background, and an otherwise regular woman, with hopes and dreams, foibles and strengths. Characters become less two dimentional as the series unfolds, but the situations continue to surprise. I like the weaving of the background stories, the southern culture (up to a point, the "daddy's girl" references and some of the female stereotypes are tedious and stop the flow of the story, but all in all a series to read, enjoy, if not to ponder deeply.

I really enjoyed this entry in the Mississippi Delta series. It deals with a more serious subject than previous entries - that of a racism that is, unfortunately, still prevalant in some communities.
In this episode, P.I. Sarah Booth Delaney is asked by the widow of a murdered black blues musician to find out who really killed him as she doesn't think the man accused, a white formerly racist bluesman, is guilty.
Sarah Booth must deal with, among the normal problems an investigation brings, a town that is divided along racial lines due to the killing, a son of the murdered man who hates all white people, two biker friends of the accused (also racist), and, of course, Jitty, her house ghost. I must admit that I agree with one of the other reviewers that Jitty can be tiresome as she contradicts herself repeatedly and, for some reason, the author insists on describing her various outfits down to the smallest detail.
Also in the plot is some romance - Sarah Booth is in love with the married sheriff, she is falling in love with the accused, and she has a few dates with a rich northerner who is in town to buy the club that the murdered man owned.
I think that this book is the best of the series thus far - it seems to reach a new level of competence in its style of writing and tackles a very serious subject with sensitivity. For me, it was almost a 5-star book, and would have been even closer to 5 stars if Jitty had been dropped completely or been a smaller part of the book.
Will definitely be reading the next in the series, "Hallowed Bones."