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Sarah Booth Delany, Southern ex-belle (or as she calls them ³Daddyıs Girls²), is still working to save her home from foreclosure and acting as a private eye in order to do so. Of course, she has none of the skills of a P.I. nor really any of the tools. What she does have is lots of friends and an intimate knowledge of the way society works in her little Southern town. Lee McBride is in jail having confessed to the murder of her husband, Kemper Fuquer. She summons Sarah Booth asking her to take her very difficult teenage daughter Kip as well as dig up dirt on Kemper. Her defense is going to be that he deserved to die. She claims he had beaten her and she retaliated, but there are no marks on her. And the body is difficult to examine because the huge stallion Lee owned had trampled it after Kemperıs death. As Sarah Booth investigates she finds plenty of ³dirt² on Kemper but she also tries to find the real murderer. She is certain that Lee is lying to protect someone and afraid that that someone is Leeıs daughter Kip. The story is complicated by the handsome and sexy trainer (of horses) employed by Lee and the loan shark who insists that Kemper owed him a great deal of money. The plot is well-done and fascinating. It kept me reading. The picture of the small Southern town, the society, the Daddyıs Girls and how they were subtly learning to control things were all intriguing and well-done. The characters were for the most part well-drawn and people I either liked or, as with the loan shark and Kemper, hated immediately. This means, of course, that they were more stereotypical than real. Sarah Booth is authentic however, fearful of losing her home, wanting to fall in love but not quite willing to do so, blundering about trying to take care of a headstrong teenager, and finally falling into answers that solve the problem. What I donıt like about this series is the ghost. I know that is the hook and how this is differentiated from other ³Southern mysteries,² but Jitty has outlived her usefulness as far as I am concerned. Her appearance at odd times may have allowed Sarah Booth to talk things out, but mostly she dumped me out of the story while she nagged about getting a husband, any husband. I am not wild about ³woo woo,² but I can put up with it if it is empathetic and interesting. Jitty is neither for me. My other problem was the ending. Sarah Booth got herself into a mess (stupidly) and a deus ex machina appeared to rescue her. I found it unbelievable, ridiculous, and a betrayal of the reader who has every right to expect that characters will either help themselves or be helped in a logical way. Nonetheless I like Sarah Booth, I enjoyed the Southern home cooking, and I will read more of this series. I just think some improvements could have been made.
Reviewed by Sally A. Fellows, February 2003
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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