Lights, Camera, Bones

Lights, Camera, Bones

By Carolyn Haines

Minotaur Books, 2024

Hardcover with dust jacket: $28.00 

Genre: Fiction/Mystery & Detective/Cozy

Reviewed by Lisa Harrison

Bestselling author Carolyn Haines, perennial favorite of cozy-paranormal mystery readers, conjures up another delightful whodunit in Lights, Camera, Bones, a Sarah Booth Delaney mystery. 

Prospects appear bright for the riverside town of Greenville, Mississippi, when a movie production company arrives to film an epic about the 1927 flood that submerged a large section of the area. The crew’s presence means an immediate influx of money for the local economy, and publicity to be generated by the movie promises increased tourism in the future. But no sooner has the company begun filming than complications set in: first there is resistance to the movie by some very vocal local agitators, then come the disappearances of several people while on the set. When star and producer Marlon Brandon goes missing, Sarah Booth Delaney and detective agency partner Tinkie Bellchase Richmond must try to locate him before the production is shut down.

Potential suspects and motives abound. Two disgruntled townsfolk, Lamar Bilbo, a descendant of racist Southern gentry, and bookstore owner Mary Dayle McCormick are adamant the filming be stopped. Brandon family patriarch, retired Senator Brandon, seems in favor of the production, but is he hiding animosity toward the movie? To what lengths would someone go to halt the film? The situation escalates when a severed foot is found in the river: is the shark recently discovered living in the water to blame? Or could it be a human perpetrator? With the completed script being held under wraps as Marlon Brandon’s secret, exactly what story of the Brandon family and the townspeople of Greenville will be told? The questions accumulate as speculation about the content of the movie and the behavior of suspects shifts the focus from one to another to another and back again.

Amid the high-stakes search for clues, a mad-cap adventure unfolds, punctuated by witty banter, colorfully eccentric characters, and plenty of Southern-fried shenanigans. Haines portrays the kaleidoscope of Southern culture with a deft hand, giving nods to both the presence of progressive ideas and the fear of ridicule that leads some people to prefer ignoring or covering up the past to confronting ancestral wrongdoing. Her focus remains on telling a rollicking story, with dashes of wisdom about the region’s relationship to its history to ponder. Haines’s protagonist is literally haunted by the past in the person of delightfully quirky “haint” Jitty, who materializes to playfully taunt Sarah Booth at the most unexpected times, bringing sass, substance, and possible clues in her repartee. Haines blends history with a well-constructed sense of place into her entertaining tale,

The latest Sarah Booth Delaney mystery has plenty of charms to captivate a variety of readers. Carolyn Haines fans will enjoy the familiar characters and intricate plot twists and turns of Lights, Camera Bones. (Astute readers may solve one piece of the puzzle midway through and keep the pages turning while wondering when the characters will make the same connection!) General readers will delight in the Southern quirkiness, sympathetic characters, history, and heart. 

Carolyn Haines is the author of the Sarah Booth Delaney Mysteries. She is the recipient of both the Harper Lee Distinguished Writing Award and the Richard Wright Award for Literary Excellence. Born and raised in Mississippi, she now lives in Semmes, Alabama, on a farm with more dogs, cats, and horses than she can possibly keep track of.

Lisa Harrison is an avid reader who spent 15 years in the book publishing industry. When not curled up with a cup of tea, a book, and a rescued cat or two (or more), she enjoys all varieties of needle crafts.