Bonefire of the Vanities

April 30, 2012
In Haines’s charming 12th mystery featuring Zinnia, Miss., PI Sarah Booth Delaney (after 2011’s Bones of a Feather), Sarah Booth and her partner, Tinkie Bellcase Richmond, investigate wealthy Marjorie Littlefield’s involvement in the mysterious Heart’s Desire secret society. One of the services the society claims to provide is contact with the dead, something Sarah Booth is intimately familiar with, since family “haint” Jitty interacts with her in the guise of fictional detectives like Nancy Drew and Jessica Fletcher. Sarah Booth and Tinkie pose as Marjorie’s maids at the society’s secure resort, where they must deal with a snooty butler, a hostile head chef, a strong-minded feline, and the concerns of their respective sweethearts, even before the bodies start to fall. Meanwhile, Marjorie tries to discover whether her son was responsible for her daughter’s death. A somewhat convoluted and contrived plot won’t bother cozy fans. Agent: Marian Young, the Young Agency.

July 1, 2012
A much loved cat stands to inherit billions. Marjorie Littlefield, who's getting on in years, refuses to leave her fortune to her son Chasley because she believes that he may have caused the drowning death of his sister Mariam when they were kids. Did he? Eager to find out for certain, Marjorie falls under the sway of a mother-and-daughter duo who claim they can call up spirits at Heart's Desire, their well-guarded retreat. They promise to rouse Mariam at a seance so that Marjorie can ask her directly what Chasley did or didn't do. A lot of humbug, think Marjorie's friends, who ask Sarah Booth Delaney and her best pal Tinkie (Bones of a Feather, 2011, etc.) to investigate, a mission that requires them to gain entrance to the compound by masquerading as Marjorie's personal maids. They snoop around the other guests and antagonize the resident staff, which includes a starchy butler with kinky sexual proclivities and a cook who brandishes carving knives with the panache of an assassin. After a kitchen maid and a guest are murdered and Empress Josephine wafts by, but not Mariam, Sarah Booth's fiance, Graf, and Tinkie's husband, Oscar, lie their way onto the premises to help them out. Lots of things will go bump in the night before the secret that demanded two die within two days is revealed and Marjorie disinherits her cat, who has fallen in love with Sarah Booth's fiance. Tinkie has all the best moves, but Jitty, the spirit only Sarah Booth can see, has the best disguises.

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June 1, 2012

Sarah goes undercover as a maid in her 12th adventure (after Bones of a Feather) to try to figure out who's scamming an eccentric old gal from her fortune. This Mississippi-based cozy series always circulates well.

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