A Garland of Bones

Spunky southern private investigator Sarah Booth Delaney tackles solving a string of strange accidents in the midst of celebrating the holiday season, in Carolyn Haines’s cozy A Garland of Bones.

Sarah Booth is all set for Christmas. She’s having a decoration party at Dahlia House and planning a festive Christmas dinner with all of her friends. There are parties everywhere. It seems the residents of Sunflower County have brought in a bountiful crop this year and everyone is in a party mood.

Each little Delta town has a special Christmas activity, and Tinkie proposes that they rent a limo and drive to Columbus, MS, and stay in a B&B for several days so they can Christmas shop and participate in a slate of annual Christmas activities that include Christmas karaoke, wassailing, and a parade with floats of blues musicians. Everyone is on board to go. Because a good journalist is never off work, Cece says she will cover it for the Zinnia Dispatch. Even Millie takes some time off from the café to party with her friends.

But their Christmas cheer soon mutates to Christmas fear, when at one celebratory event after the other, someone gets hurt. An electrified microphone and a slip down the stairs may seem like mere accidents, but each of these so-called “accidents” could have been fatal. The Christmas bells are ringing hauntingly in Columbus this year, and Sarah Booth and Tinkie—with a little help from Sheriff Coleman Peters of course, are determined to catch the wrong-doers and ensure they receive nothing but coal in their stockings.