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CLOSER THAN THE BONES by Dean James Silver Dagger, May 2001 $13.95 ISBN: 1570721831 Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Ernestine (Ernie) Carpenter, 60 year old retired schoolteacher, is hired by the local matriarch and patron of Mississippi writers, Mary Tucker McElroy, to try and determine the truth behind the death of sharp-tongued writer Sukey Lytton at Idlewild the previous Christmas. Mary Tucker has invited the same group of authors to spend a two weeks at the mansion so that Ernie can use her observational skills, honed by years of teaching adolescents.

As soon as Miss Carpenter arrives at Idlewild, she wonders at some of the strangeness she feel there. She is met at the door by Morwell Philips, who takes her to Mary Tucker's mother's bedroom, a most elegant chamber. Ernie goes downstairs and hears an altercation between McElroy and one of her guests, Lurleen Landry. Then she meets the rest of the guests, Russell Bertram, Pulitzer prize winning novelist, and his shrewish wife, and finally, Brett Doran, whose first novel was misunderstood by the critics. Finally, as they sit down to a meal, a literary agent, known to all, except Ernie, comes in, hinting he has a copy of Sukey's missing manuscript, which he fully intends to publish and which will cause trouble for all present. He is later found dead in his bath and the manuscript is missing.

Dean James has brought the English country house mystery to Mississippi. He is also one of that group of Southerners who is carrying on the tradition of story-telling long nurtured in that part of the US. His characters are lovingly crafted, as is his sense of place. Those hours he spent listening to his aunt's tales when he was a boy have not been wasted. I have to look for his previous novel Cruel as the Grave.