I personally have always found Mississippi to be laid back in all the best ways, beginning from the early days of my childhood in the northern part of the state to my visits to the beautiful white-sand coast featured in Three Fortunes in One Cookie. But magnolias and mint juleps can be deceiving, and writers Jeannie Holmes, Carolyn Haines, and Dean James–writing as Miranda James–have penned some tales to show you a more sinister side of my mother’s home state.
Jeannie Holmes, Carolyn Haines, and Dean James at Houston’s Murder By The Book on Saturday, July 16, 2011.
Holmes introduced her urban fantasy series featuring vampire Alexandra Sabian and her arrival in Jefferson, Mississippi, in Blood Law. The second in the series presents a new peril for Alexandra in Blood Secrets, with a killer known as The Dollmaker. I haven’t read these yet, but the books’ descriptions are enticing–though the doll thing may make me reconsider whether I want bins of Barbie and her friends in my attic.
Fans of Haines’s Sarah Booth Delaney series will be going with Sarah and her assistant Tinkie to Natchez, Mississippi, to investigate robbery, kidnapping, and possibly murder in this eleventh installment, Bones of a Feather. In more good news, Haines’s publisher has contracted her to write at least two more books featuring these Mississippi Delta sleuths. I swear I could listen to Carolyn’s stories as long as she tells–and writes–them. Also, be sure to check out her web site to learn more about Good Fortune Farm Refuge, her organization that rescues and places animals in adoptive homes.
I last featured Dean’s Cat in the Stacks mystery series back in May with the signing for his second, Classified As Murder. Fans of Dean (and his alter ego Miranda James) will be glad to know he’s just finished writing the third in the series and is beginning the fourth. Both will be out next year, and you can count on my letting you know when they’re available.
Find a shady spot and take a literary trip to the Mississippi of these three authors’ imaginations: no mosquitoes, just mysteries.
Just look at those beautiful bookcases!! And the books sound good too.
You would love shopping in Murder By the Book–it’s so cozy and just what a bookstore should be in every way.
If I’m ever fortunate enough to find myself in Houston I will definitely pay Murder By The Book a visit.
You’d feel very welcomed there! And of course, I’d want to get it all on camera. =)