LADY OF BONES

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.