Smarty Bones: A Sarah Booth Delaney Mystery (Sarah Booth Delaney Mysteries)
Sarah Booth Delaney and her partner, Tinkie, are asked to stop abrasive historian Olive Twist from trying to prove that the Lady in Red, a perfectly preserved body dating from Civil War times, is an ancestor of two powerful families in Zinnia, Mississippi. Olive is also bent on proving the Lady in Red was involved in Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. When her assistant, Jimmy Boswell, is killed, Olive asks Sarah Booth and Tinkie to investigate. Assisted by Tinkie’s husband, Sarah Booth’s fiancé, and Dahlia House’s haint (ghost) Jitty, they follow a trail that leads to the survivalist relatives of the Falcons and the Richmonds. A satisfying mystery framed by a well-drawn small-town southern setting. --Sue OBrien