Sarah Booth Delaney Series

In this delightful cozy mystery, Sarah Booth Delaney follows a winding trail of murder and deception into a world where ghosts make fashion statements—and where one person’s miracle is another person’s mayhem.

“Funny, ingenious, and down-home delightful.”—Dallas Morning News

Doreen Mallory is beautiful, mysterious—and claims to have the gift of healing. But why couldn’t she save her own daughter, who died mysteriously at ten weeks? Convinced of Doreen’s guilt, local law is asking the same questions—and it’ll take a modern-day miracle for P.I. Sarah Booth Delaney to prove her innocence. Especially when Doreen refuses to talk about the men in her life. Like the shady televangelist . . . or the married politician with ties to the Mob. Either of them could be little Rebekah’s father; either of them could also be her killer.

With Halloween approaching and her own personal life up for grabs, Sarah Booth could use a little faith healing herself. And she’d better be prepared for the fallout of her most unpopular case yet—especially when a decades-old secret explodes, unleashing a storm of fury on Sarah Booth and all those she loves.

Sarah Booth Delaney uncovers skeletons in closets—and elsewhere—as she attempts to solve a murder that threatens to tear her beloved town in half.

“This cozy read is the next best thing to curling up with a mint julep on the porch swing on a lazy afternoon.”—Publishers Weekly

A born-and-bred Mississippi belle, Sarah Booth Delaney is no ordinary P.I. And this was no ordinary murder. The dead man was Ivory Keys, a gifted Black pianist—and his murder has sparked the kind of racial divide Zinnia, Mississippi, hasn’t seen since the Civil War. After all, the prime suspect is Keys’s protégé, Scott Hampton, a white rich boy turned racist—and Sarah Booth has been hired to prove he didn’t do it by no less than the victim’s widow.

For a woman feeling a little heat of her own—navigating between a rich, available businessman, a married lawman with a waffling heart, and the sexy bluesman who is angling to become much more than her client—this case is taking some dangerous twists. A town’s slumbering passions have been awakened with a jolt, a matchmaking ghost is eyeing some promising suitors, and Sarah Booth is caught between her need to know the truth and the consequences it will have on her town—and on her life. . . .

In this charming cozy mystery, Sarah Booth Delaney must use her horse sense to prove her friend’s innocence and find her husband’s real killer—unless the killer finds Sarah Booth first. . . .

“Wickedly funny. Devilishly clever. Scintillatingly Southern. Carolyn Haines is an author to die for.”—Carolyn Hart, author of April Fool Dead

She may be a Mississippi belle, but Sarah Booth Delaney is no pampered daddy’s girl. Unwed and over thirty, Sarah Booth has her own set of problems—like coping with regular hauntings by her great-great-grandmother’s nanny, a busybody of a ghost who’s set on marrying her off to the first suitor who comes calling. But when an old friend is in trouble, Sarah Booth doesn’t hesitate to get involved.

Eulalee McBride has confessed to murdering her husband . . . and she wants Sarah Booth to dig up the dirt on the violent scalawag to prove he got what he deserved. Sarah Booth suspects that her friend is lying through her pearly whites . . . but why? There’s certainly no lack of suspects in Zinnia, Mississippi, including Bud Lynch, a horse trainer who arouses killer lust in the town’s women. As Sarah Booth begins to put together the pieces of the case, a killer is preparing to strike again. And this time it could send one late-blooming southern sleuth into an early grave.

When a dinner party guest is found dead, it’s up to Sarah Booth Delaney to bring the murderer to justice—before she’s the next one on the chopping block.

“An entertaining mix of mystery and mirth.”—The Orlando Sentinel

It’s so true about the best parties—the morning after is always murder. . . .

Private investigation isn’t on the list of a southern belle’s most desirable accomplishments—but it’s saved Sarah Booth Delaney’s Delta homestead. Now all she has to cope with is its bossy antebellum ghost who is determined to save Sarah Booth—from spinsterhood. Then comes the perfect social occasion: Lawrence Ambrose’s dinner party. . . .

Ambrose, once a famous man of southern letters, is planning a comeback: a delicious tell-all with a bitchy ex-model as his “biographer.” As he taunts his dinner guests with the news that his book will blow the lid off Zinnia’s darkest secrets, it becomes plain that each and every guest has a secret—and wants Ambrose to keep it. When the morning-after mess includes a bloody corpse, and the manuscript of the biography disappears, Sarah Booth goes digging for answers. But many who hold them are six feet under—or soon will be—and if she doesn’t tread carefully, she could join them any day now. . . .

Meet Sarah Booth Delaney, an unconventional Southern belle whose knack for uncovering the truth is about to make her the hottest detective in Zinnia, Mississippi . . . if it doesn’t make her the deadest.

“[Carolyn Haines is] a writer of exceptional talent.”—The Milwaukee Journal

No self-respecting lady would allow herself to end up in Sarah Booth’s situation. Unwed, unemployed, and over thirty, she’s flat broke and about to lose the family plantation. Not to mention being haunted by the ghost of her great-great-grandmother’s nanny, who never misses an opportunity to remind her of her sorry state—or to suggest a plan of action, like ransoming her friend’s prize pooch to raise some cash.

But soon Sarah Booth’s walk on the criminal side leads her deeper into unladylike territory, and she’s hired to solve a murder. Did gorgeous, landed Hamilton Garrett V really kill his mother twenty years ago? And if so, what is Sarah Booth doing falling for this possible murderer? When she asks one too many questions and a new corpse turns up, she is suddenly a suspect herself . . . and Sarah Booth finds that digging up the bones of the past could leave her rolling over in her grave.