Them Bones [Hardcover]

Carolyn Haines (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1999

A Mystery from the Mississippi Delta, Funny!

Product Details

• Hardcover: 318 pages
• Publisher: Bantam Books (1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0739407333
• ISBN-13: 978-0739407332
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,089,090 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Carolyn Haines is the author of eighteen novels, including the acclaimed Sarah Booth Delaney mystery series. She was honored with the prestigious 2009 Richard Wright Award for Literary Excellence. Haines was also 2010 recipient of the Harper Lee Award. Born and raised in Mississippi, she now lives in Alabama on a farm with more dogs, cats, and horses than she can possibly keep track of!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Series Debut, January 3, 2002

By 

mayfayre "mayfayre" (New Jersey USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Them Bones: A Mystery from the Mississippi Delta (Mass Market Paperback)

Sara Booth Delaney is the type of character that you know you're going to like as soon as you begin reading this book. She's returned to Mississippi to try to save the old family plantation, but without success. Her only companion in the big old house is the ghost of her great-great-grandmother's nanny, Jitty. Jitty is a kick, and the bane of Sarah Booth's existence, though of course, only Sarah Booth can see her. Another complication is the Delaney women's penchants for madness and mysterious "womb" disorders - which can be interpreted anyway you like - and which seem to be well-known in the community. Know only that Sarah Booth's biological clock is ticking very loudly.

Sarah Booth decides on dognapping as the quickest way to raise money, holding her best friend's dog for ransom. Problems ensue when this same friend asks her to investigate an older murder, stirring up things that probably should have been best be left alone. There's also the complication of her attraction to two different men - one who wants to marry her and get her out of her financial difficulties, and one who may have been a murderer and seems to be just passing through her life.

This was a very enjoyable book - well-written, sexy, and funny. The Deep South setting is interesting, and Ms. Haines describes that society with amusement and affection, and makes it an integral part of the story. If you're a fan of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series, you'll like this book. The storylines and characters are different but there are some basic similarities - an amusing woman who thinks she sees herself clearly yet who can't really understand her own appeal, a surfeit of handsome and sexy men, and uniquely amusing secondary characters.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I WANT TO GO TO THE MISSISSIPPI DELTA!, January 17, 2002

By 

R. A. Taylor "avid reader" (FL) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Them Bones: A Mystery from the Mississippi Delta (Mass Market Paperback)

I wasn't too sure I was going to like this book--many of the mysteries I have read try too hard to be cute or funny, and I thought perhaps the idea of the ghost was just another one, but this book was truly a hoot! And the ghost Jitty's conversations with Sarah Booth had me laughing out loud. The characters were fully developed and the actual mystery was just that for me, almost to the end before I figured it out. Sarah Booth Delaney and Jitty are welcome on my reading list any time.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This would be a terrific book even without the mystery!, April 18, 2004

By 

M. C. Crammer (Decatur, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Them Bones: A Mystery from the Mississippi Delta (Mass Market Paperback)

The book has so much literary merit, that it could be placed among the novels. However, the excellent mystery plot also wins it a place among the mysteries.

Haines creates characters who are memorable and vivid and places them in the Mississippi Delta town of Zinnia (I'm kind of reminded of the movie "In the Heat of the Night"). Sarah Booth is living in the ancestral home -- she is an orphan and an only child, the last of the Delaneys -- but is about to lose it, because she is destitute despite her social credentials. Her only company at Dahlia House - the antebellum house -- is the ghost of a slave, who appears in a variety of outfits and "encourages" Sarah to get to work reproducing.

In an attempt to earn some money, Sarah takes on the task of trying to get to the truth of a scandal from 20 years ago in which first a leading citizen and then the leading citizen's wife die in some very questionable accidents. THe two young offspring are whispered to have something to do with it, and Sarah's client wants to find out if Hamilton the Fifth is as bad as rumors have it. Hamilton the Fifth is a romantic interest worthy of Evanovich -- and did I mention the book is often funny?

Sarah is stirring up some dangerous memories and some deaths start to follow.

I really loved this book and can hardly wait to read the next in this series and discover what happens to Sarah.