Sarah Shankman

*Book source ~ Many thanks to Untreed Reads for providing a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Crime reporter Samantha ‘Sam’ Adams is back in her hometown of Atlanta after living in California for 20 years. Her Uncle George is a retired lawyer slowly losing his sight and Sam moves back in. It’s as if she’s never left. When a family friend and fellow lawyer disappears and then turns up dead, Sam can’t help but question the accidental death he is labeled with by the show more suspiciously crooked Sheriff. Sam smells a story, two stories actually. One about Forrest Ridley the ‘accidental’ death victim and the other about crooked good ol’ boy Sheriffs in the South. Can Sam get to the bottom of these stories or will she end up at the bottom of a lake?

A satisfactory mystery with enough twists and turns to keep one guessing this story has great characters and humor, plus a possible rekindling of a long ago romance. I’m not very forgiving so Beau, no matter how handsome and hot he is, would get the cold shoulder from me indefinitely. But Sam seems to be thawing and I find that disappointing. If he’s going to come back into her life I wish she’d make him suffer for longer than one book. But then, that’s just me. Overall though I found the portrayal of the South funny and fairly accurate. At least from what I’ve seen and heard as a Yankee (from OH) who has moved to NC. I may not be living in the Deep South, but close enough. *winks* show less

Interesting to watch all the many sets of friends and enemies slowly come together (or die!), but the end is disappointing, both romance-wise and not witnessing the final “come-uppance” due the “bad guys, girls, and cops!!

Entertaining, lightweight mystery with numerous cliches: female reporter returns to her hometown after disatsrous marriage, encounters old flame who did her wrong, sticks her nose in when a lawyer turns up dead. The Southern nouveau riche like to drink, have affairs, get facelifts, practive shady economics, and it gets one of them killed. Sam (antha) gets herself into trouble by investigating.

A Confederacy of Crime contains twelve short stories by writers who, even if they are not natives of the states below the Mason-Dixon Line, have managed to capture the Southern Style of writing. Plenty of crime, sex and humour, dressed up with grace and good manners, sultry drawls and steamy weather. The stories by Jeffrey Deaver, Joan Hess, Michael Malone, Margaret Maron and Sarah Shankman are especially delicious.