FRANKLY MY DEAR, I’M DEAD

Rhett Butler is murdered, and the suspects naturally include Scarlett O’Hara.

Sassy southern divorcée Delilah Dickinson has just started up a literary-tour business. Her maiden voyage involves Gone With the Wind—and is nearly gone with the wind itself. Delilah, her son-in-law, Luke, and her teen twin nieces, Amelia and Augusta, are shepherding the tour group around the Margaret Mitchell home and Movie Museum when one of her charges, a German tourist, accuses another, Elliott Riley, of trying to steal his camera. After Delilah smooths things over, the group buses out to Fontenoy Hall, a plantation that provides food, a ball, overnight accommodations and characters from Gone With the Wind in period costume. The group is charmed until Riley finds the corpse of Rhett Butler, aka Steven Kelley, in the garden. When the police arrive and hold both tourists and actors for questioning, Delilah decides to turn sleuth and salvage her tour. Steven, head of the drama department at a nearby college who supplied the student actors and costumes, enjoyed quite a reputation with coeds despite a wife who played Scarlett to his Rhett. Although frozen out by the police, Delilah keeps hunting for clues and finds enough to put her life in danger.

The first in a Literary Tour Mystery series from Washburn (The Christmas Cookie Killer, 2008, etc.) is a promising addition to the ranks of cozies featuring strong Southern women.