Lady of Bones (Sarah Booth Delaney Series #24)

by Carolyn Haines

Overview

Carolyn Haines's Lady of Bones is the next novel in the series that Kirkus Reviews characterizes as “Stephanie Plum meets the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” featuring sassy Southern private investigator Sarah Booth Delaney.

It’s Halloween season in Mississippi as Sarah Booth and the gang gather to decorate and gush over Tinkie’s new baby, Maylin. Sarah Booth is just about to refresh the cocktails when she hears a knock on the door and opens it to find a woman named Frankie, distraught at the disappearance of her daughter Christa, a young journalist. Christa had been investigating the disappearance of young women in New Orleans over a five-year period—one every year around Halloween. Now Christa herself is missing, and Frankie fears it may be connected to a cult based in the Garden District, called People of Eternity.

People of Eternity are known to have far-reaching connections which Frankie worries may reach as high as law enforcement. Refusing to contact the authorities, she turns to Delaney Detective Agency as her only hope.

Despite initial reservations, Sarah Booth accepts the case, which takes her on a journey to a secret underworld of beguiling cult leaders, witchcraft, and potentially human sacrifice. She’ll have to keep her wits about her if she wants to crack this case…and make it home alive.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250833723
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	06/14/2022
Series:	Sarah Booth Delaney Series , #24
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	59,436
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

CAROLYN HAINES is the author of the Sarah Booth Delaney Mysteries. She is the recipient of both the Harper Lee Distinguished Writing Award and the Richard Wright Award for Literary Excellence. Born and raised in Mississippi, she now lives in Semmes, Alabama on a farm with more dogs, cats, and horses than she can possibly keep track of.

Editorial Reviews

04/11/2022

In Haines’s taut 24th Sarah Booth Delaney mystery (after 2021’s Independent Bones), the Zinnia, Miss., PI is approached by Frances “Frankie” Moore, an old friend of her late mother, to find Frankie’s daughter, Christa, who has gone missing in New Orleans. When Sarah Booth travels to the Big Easy and delves into the case with her sheriff boyfriend, Coleman Peters, and her partner in the Delaney Detective Agency, Tinkie Bellcase Richmond, she discovers a trail of disappearances—not only Christa but also Christa’s artist friend, Britta Wagner, as well as a friend of Britta’s. As a budding investigative journalist, Christa was examining the disturbing activities of a local cult, heightening Sarah Booth’s apprehension about the intended fate of Christa and Britta, as well as her own personal danger, as Halloween—a key event for the cult—approaches. Haines’s message about vulnerable people who are prey to unscrupulous individuals, juxtaposed with the determination of Sarah Booth’s circle to find the missing women, adds poignancy. Cozy readers will enjoy spending time with Sarah Booth and company. Agent: Marian Young, Young Agency. (June)

Publishers Weekly

"Taut...Haines’s message about vulnerable people who are prey to unscrupulous individuals, juxtaposed with the determination of Sarah Booth’s circle to find the missing women, adds poignancy. Cozy readers will enjoy spending time with Sarah Booth and company." —Publishers Weekly

"An entertaining romp for devotees of the irrepressible Sarah Booth." —Booklist

"Haines shows Sarah at her madcap best back in her hometown in this clever adventure. This is crazy cozy with a little something for everyone: paranormal doings, plenty of Evanovich zaniness, and a cast of eccentrics."
—Booklist on Bone to Be Wild

"Enjoyable…Jitty, the headstrong ghost who shares Sarah Booth’s family home, is just one of the many well-drawn characters who help bring this Southern tale to colorful life." —Publishers Weekly on Rock-a-Bye Bones

"Distinctive characters and an atmospheric setting elevate this paranormal cozy. Series fans and newcomers alike will be satisfied." —Publishers Weekly on Game of Bones

"A dark mystery, effectively framed by its well-drawn Mississippi Delta setting." —Booklist on Game of Bones

"A sure pleaser in both the mystery and the romance department. If you like a satisfying cozy Southern whodunit, Charmed Bones fits the bill." —RT Book Reviews

From the Publisher

12/01/2021

In a series starter from the ever-popular Armstrong, homicide detective Mallory is in 2019 Edinburgh when she experiences A Rip Through Time and winds up in one of the city's alleyways in 1869, inhabiting the body of strangled-if-not-quite-dead housemaid Catriona Thomson and soon hunting for a killer (50,000-copy first printing). In Atherton's Aunt Dimity and the Enchanted Cottage, the redoubtable sleuth and her English-village neighbors fail in their attempt to befriend standoffish newcomer Crispin Windle until they discover the ruins of a Victorian woolen mill—and the graves of children who worked there, whom they seek to identify (30,000-copy first printing; originally scheduled for July 2021). In Nonna Maria and the Case of the Missing Bride, crusty but beloved widow Nonna Maria—who lives on the isle of Ischia in the Gulf of Naples and was inspired by the No. 1 New York Times best-selling Carcaterra's grandmother—intervenes when a young bride-to-be declares that she's afraid of her fiancé. In Haines's Lady of Bones, Mississippi-based Sarah Booth Delaney of the Delaney Detective Agency is attending a party alit with jack-o-lanterns when she's approached by a woman seeking her vanished daughter, who has been investigating the disappearance of young women in New Orleans every Halloween for the last five years (40,000-copy first printing). The internationally best-selling author of the "Dark Iceland" and "Hulda" series, Jónasson sets his new standalone during an Icelandic blizzard, with four frantic friends sheltering in an abandoned hunting lodge and facing a reignited tragedy that likely makes them wish they were all Outside (50,000-copy first printing). In Klingborg's Wild Prey, Inspector Lu Fei of the Chinese Police travels to a remote region of Myanmar to find a missing 15-year-old girl in a case involving the illegal trafficking of exotic animals (50,000-copy first printing). In Robert B. Parker's Revenge Tour, Lupica assigns PI Sunny Randall the thankless task of investigating actress friend Melanie Joan Hall when Melanie's manager turns up dead, her bank account looks to be wiped out, and details of her past suddenly seem more imagined than real. In Paretsky's Overboard, a seriously injured teenage girl discovered by V.I. Warshawski on Lake Michigan's rocky shore subsequently vanishes from the hospital, and the iconic detective must chase down a monstrous conspiracy with pandemic-ridden Chicago as backdrop (100,000-copy first printing). Pursuing a massive drugs-and-weapons shipment being shepherded across the U.S.-Mexican border by former cops with the warning "You talk, you die" written on their bodies, Patterson/Paetro stalwart Sgt. Lindsay Boxer suddenly has 22 Seconds to decide what her fate will be. Second in the new series from librarian Weaver, who launched her writing career with the delightful Amory Ames mysteries, The Key to Deceit has breaker-and-enterer Ellie McDonnell again approached by stuffed-shirt good-guy Major Ramsey in World War II London: he wants her to discover which side the female spy found bobbing in the Thames was on (40,000-copy first printing).

Library Journal

2022-03-30
Is there a secret to eternal life, or is its promise just a big con? That’s the question Sarah Booth Delaney has to answer in her 24th adventure.

Now that Tinkie Bellcase Richmond, the partner in Sarah Booth’s Mississippi detective agency, has finally given birth to the adorable Maylin, not even the sudden appearance of her household haint, Jitty, dressed as death can distract Sarah Booth for more than a short time. Jitty does offer up a cryptic warning, so when Frances “Frankie” Moore arrives seeking help in finding her journalist daughter, Christa, Sarah Booth prepares for the worst. Because Tinkie must stay home in Zinnia with Maylin, Sarah Booth’s boyfriend, Sheriff Coleman Peters, accompanies her to New Orleans, where Christa was investigating human trafficking and a cult. Christa’s roommate, free-spirited German artist Britta Wagner, had already vanished, and Christa’s disappearance makes Frankie fear for their safety. Christa’s boyfriend, Carlos Rodriguez, and her friends in the apartment complex where she lived are not much help, but the sleuths do learn that she was looking into the People of Earth, a cult whose charismatic leader claims she can stop the aging process. Her search for a magical garden Britta was hired to paint takes Sarah Booth all over New Orleans until she finds hints of strange rituals in the garden of a deserted house. Carlos goes AWOL, Christa’s friends come clean, and there’s a race against time to find the missing women before they’re sacrificed.

A spooky, dangerous adventure whose premise is all too believable.

Kirkus Reviews