Carolyn Haines, Ham Bones

Ham Bones

Carolyn Haines

Kensington, July 2007, $22.00, 275 pp.

ISBN 0758210922

A year ago, Sarah Booth Delaney realized she would never make it as a Broadway star, so she returned home to Zinnia, Mississippi where she opened up a private detective agency with her best friend Tinki. She left behind her lover Graff, who made no move to stop her; he promptly entered into a relationship with diva Renata, who Sarah was once an understudy for in a Broadway play that won the star an award.

Sarah is not exactly thrilled that Graff and Renata are coming to Zinnia to put on the play Cat On A Hat Tin Roof. Graff tells Sarah that Renata has been behaving erratically and he wants Sarah to be her understudy; she finally agrees, but instead works like a gofer driving to Nashville to pick up a special trade of lipstick made especially for the pampered star. During her intermission, Renata keels over and dies; the coroner determines cyanide poisoning was the cause, with the lipstick as the mechanism. Other circumstantial evidence enhances the lipstick, pointing to Sarah as the killer. Sheriff Coleman Peters who professes to love her arrests her. When she is freed on bond, Sarah, with Tinki at her side sets out to prove her innocence by seeking to uncover the identity of the real killer.

Sarah blossoms in HAM BONES, as her coping skills give her a confidence she never had before. If she is cleared of the charges she has new chance to renew her relationship with Graff and going to Hollywood. Readers will root for her to make it with Graff, as her relationship with the sheriff has done nothing but her. The victim had a lot of enemies with enough motives to want her dead. Sarah has to figure out which one of them actually put their desire into practice, as to all of them felt strongly enough about her to do so. When it comes to rattling southern bones, Carolyn Haines writes an exciting down home cozy.