Darla Cavanaugh and
her husband, Dr. Stephen Nicoletti, are on the verge of adopting a
baby girl from China, but Darla must leave immediately or the
adoption won’t go through. A call from Mississippi Governor, Wilson
Burnett, derails her plans.
An Afro-American
student and Burnett’s adopted daughter, who was just inducted into
a previously segregated sorority, has been found hanging from a tree
on the Ole Miss campus. This immediately appears to be a hate crime,
but as Darla and her partner Rita Gibbons investigate the case
becomes more complicated.
Darla and Rita are
enjoyable characters. Darla is all business, but Rita provides some
comic relief. She’s a red-neck and proud of it. I love the way she
punctures the pretensions of the society girls in the sorority.
The setting is well
described giving a good background for the question of whether this
was a lynching, or a crime with a different motivation. The
complications of the segregated sorority, a white supremacist group,
and the governor’s political enemies, provide a number or twists. I
was not surprised by the ending. It’s not easy to guess, but the
author provides enough clues that you feel satisfied by the outcome.
I recommend this
book if you enjoy mysteries with believable female detectives.
I received this book
from Alibi for this review.
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