I found this several months ago and it just sat in my Wish List until a few weeks ago but now it’s the Christmas season so I bring it out.  

A Gift of Bones
by Carolyn Haines -2018
Read by Kate Forbes 8h 9m 
Rating:  C /  cozy private detective 
#19 in the Sarah Booth Delaney series

Very disappointing.  This is #19 in this series and I really do think it’s better if the books are read in order because I was lost as to characters more than once.

The first plot idea was moderately good – a pregnant woman is missing. She is young and unmarried, but quite smart and holding a responsible job at a local bank. After a few days a ransom note is received by the woman’s cousin, the victim’s closest relative at the moment.  The note demands a very large and specific amount of money. Private investigator Sarah Booth and her assistant, Tinkie, are called in and doing the best they can, interviewing people and checking out whatever turns up, but there seems to be very little in the way of clues.  There’s some romance and a lot of Southeastern Mississippi chatter, there are very bright and cutesy “critters” (pets), there’s light-weight Southern philosophy and manners and even some psychology.  Still, the plot of the second half is so unlikely as to be implausible. No more of this series for me.