Book Review: Blue Christmas Bones by Carolyn Haines

It’s Christmas time and Sarah Booth Delaney and her friends are thrilled to be spending it in the city of Tupelo, just a few hours’ drive away from their own hometown of Zinnia, Mississippi. The birthplace of Elvis Presley has decided to add a slate of wintertime festivities to match its annual summer celebration of the cultural icon. Sarah Booth and co. are all huge fans:

I love Elvis. I inherited my addiction to Tupelo’s native son from my mama, who basically had an altar to the Mississippi icon. One of my best memories is sitting on the blue velvet sofa in the music room watching my parents dance to Elvis classics. I’d never heard anything more romantic than his love ballads. His appearance on TV shows–my mother had purchased the entire collection–reeked of wholesome sexuality. He was a man ahead of his time and completely unprepared to deal with the fame that dropped on him like an anvil. Generous to a fault, he was easy pickings for some of the unethical people drawn to his life.

It’s not just the proliferation of Elvis impersonators, exhibits, and themed attractions that have drawn Sarah Booth there. Her friends have roped her into joining them in various competitions that involve either knowing tons of trivia about The King or performing to his music. It’s looking to be loads of fun…until a valuable replica belt gets stolen almost right out from under their noses. Adding insult to injury, the culprit is most likely the person who’d been seen wandering around the exhibit hall dressed as Colonel Tom Parker, the manager whom Sarah Booth firmly believes exploited her idol.

This would merely be an unfortunate event if the belt’s owner, the evocatively named Grace Land, hadn’t caught wind that Sarah Booth and her partner Tinkie Bellcase Richmond are some of the state’s foremost private investigators. Though they’re supposed to be on vacation, Sarah Booth and Tinkie agree that they can’t just let someone spoil the Elvis festivities in this way and decide to take on the case.

They regret it almost instantly. Reality TV star Grace is a handful, and not opposed to lying to make herself look good. Worse, she has dozens of enemies, largely due to her high-handed nature around town and on her show. Anyone could have wanted to take her down a peg or two by stealing the belt. But when events take a deadly turn, Sarah Booth and Tinkie will have to start investigating who might hate Grace enough to kill:

While everyone else was busy, I ducked behind the thick curtains with Robbie and went to the back of the stage. There were ropes and levers and mechanical things used to set lights or bring the curtains up and down. There were moving dollies to change scenery. A longing for the stage hit me hard. I loved the trappings of the theater, but I was looking for something in particular. What I found was a pulley with a bit of severed rope still on it. I picked up the end of the rope. The rope was cleanly cut, except for one bit that was frayed.

With foul play clearly afoot on what should be the most wonderful time of the year, will Sarah Booth be able to figure out whodunnit before someone gets hurt for real?

Series fans and Elvis fans will be rooting for Sarah Booth and co. to get to the bottom of this mystery and bring the thief and wannabe killer to justice. This was actually my first experience with the protagonist’s namesake series, and I was struck by how lovely and warm-hearted she and her friends are in defending and celebrating the differences of others. The twenty-eighth book of the series showcases its diverse main characters with both charm and aplomb. I was rooting for them all, but especially for theater-loving Sarah, whose complex background lends her a wonderfully relatable depth and humanity.