Sticks and Bones: A Sarah Booth Delaney Mystery

Hollywood comes to Zinnia, Miss., in Haines’s enjoyable 17th cozy featuring PI Sarah Booth Delaney (after 2016’s Rock-a-Bye Bones). Filmmakers are scouting locations for a screen adaptation of the memoir Dead and Gone by snooty, self-absorbed Frangelica “Sister” McFee, a former Zinnia resident who has achieved fame and fortune as a bestselling author in New York. They also have some doubts about the book’s truthfulness and want to get the real story behind the deaths of Sister’s mother and brother. Sarah Booth and her partner in the Delaney Detective Agency, Tinkie Richmond, take on the job of investigating the sordid history of the less-than-loving McFee clan. Clearly, Sarah Booth and Tinkie are getting too close for comfort when the bullets start to fly and the bodies drop. 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. [em]Agent: Marian Young, Young Agency. (May) [/em]