PEACHES AND SCREAMS

Some burdens are unavoidable. Southern California transplant Savannah Reid, the oldest of nine children, knows that she has to go back to her hometown of McGill, Georgia, for her sister Marietta’s third wedding, even if it means wearing a fluorescent orange bridesmaid’s gown. And she knows she’ll have to face deputy sheriff Tommy Stafford, who years ago introduced her to the pleasures of teen lust before unceremoniously dumping her for Lisa Mooney. But what private eye Savannah (Sour Grapes, 2000, etc.) doesn’t find out until her arrival is that she’ll also have to solve the murder of rich, philandering Judge Patterson—and solve it right quick, or prosecuting attorney Mack Goodwin, who’s Patterson’s son-in-law, will have her brother Macon strapped to a gurney ready for a lethal injection. Most of her siblings are pretty well useless: Marietta, Vidalia, Jessup, and even straitlaced Cordele can’t think of anything better to do than dump their dirty laundry on Granny Reid’s porch and pack away pounds of fried chicken. And the judge’s estranged wife Bonnie and her flashy boyfriend Alvin Barnes are downright obstructive. Lucky for Savannah that her West Coast buds—first and foremost Detective Sergeant Dick Coulter and Tammy Hart, the assistant at Savannah’s Moonlight Magnolias Detective Agency—come through to help Savannah collar the perp.

A whodunit as old-fashioned and satisfying as one of Granny Reid’s bacon-egg-and-grits breakfasts.