Ten Little Bloodhounds

Description

A Matter Of Life And Death

There's a lot of excitement down at Jo Beth Sidden's kennel. A full litter of ten baby bloodhounds is due any day. Though pressed for time, Jo Beth still agrees to do a favor for a friend -- finding a reclusive, wealthy matriarch's missing cat. But soon afterward, her client is murdered. Now, Jo Beth is looking for a killer. There's a slew of suspects to choose from, too -- all potential heirs to the matriarch's fortune. The quicker Jo Beth can solve this case, the soon she can get home to her dogs and get her life in order. But she's in for a surprise, and a fight she'll never forget.

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If Elizabeth Dole raised bloodhounds, she'd probably be a lot like Jo Beth Sidden, the heroine of Virginia Lanier's terrific series. That is to say, Jo Beth lacks a little in the warmth and empathy department, but she's very smart, very tough, and precisely the person you'd want if you were an Air Force colonel trying to locate a missing plane. "Planetrailing" isn't Jo Beth's usual bowl of grits; neither is searching for a lost cat that belongs to a crusty Southern matriarch who's even tougher than she is. But Jo Beth and her bloodhounds have the nose for sniffing out lost causes. Unfortunately, the wealthy Alyce Cancannon soon turns up dead--and Jo Beth is hired to find the murderer.

There are 10 possible suspects, and in the process of running the killer among them to ground, Jo Beth is attacked by an alligator, kidnapped by a man she had romantic designs on, and put on trial for her own life. Meanwhile, the imminent birth of 10 new bloodhounds adds to the tension!

This fifth Bloodhound adventure is somewhat melancholy, owing to the protagonist's contained emotionality and sometimes unlikable personality. But Jo Beth grows on the reader from one book to the next. And as usual, Lanier serves up a full helping of fascinating information about dog breeding, handling, training, and what can only be called "canine forensics." --Jane Adams

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Death in Bloodhound Red

Description

Jo Beth Siddon is a bloodhound trainer with a special talent for harrowing search-and-rescue missions, and a bad habit for mouthing off to deputies who refuse to take orders from a woman.She has seen her share of trouble: moonshiners poking guns at her head, crooked cops, and an abusive ex-husband with a terrible temper. Then she's suspected of murder and finds herself treading a quagmire as thick and treacherous as the Okefenokee Swamp. If she can't prove her innocence, she might lose not only the thriving business she loves, but the freedom and independence she's fought for all her life.

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The House on Bloodhound Lane

Description

Lanier does for bloodhounds what Dick Francis does for racehorses in her atmospheric, and critically applauded, novels set in rural Georgia.

Jo Beth Sidden is a fiercely independent woman who raises and trains bloodhounds for search-and-rescue missions and to track down escaped prisoners in South Georgia's Okefenokee Swamp. Jo Beth's got her hands full when the local police chief hires her to sniff out a local marijuana grower and a friend asks her to locate a kidnapped man -- even though the FBI is on the case. And when her sociopath of an ex-husband Bubba gets out of prison and begins stalking her, Jo Beth will need to use all her skills --and her bloodhounds --to outwit Bubba, to help the police and to best the FBI.

"Lanier's writing blends white-hot intensity with a lyrical sense of place that can render even a sticky humid Okefenokee Swamp as a setting I can't wait to visit again."

-Margaret Maron, bestselling author and winner of the Edgar, Agatha and Anthony Awards

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A Bloodhound To Die For

Description

In the sixth novel in this popular, award-winning mystery series, Georgia peach Jo Beth Sidden returns with her delightfully fast-on-their-feet bloodhounds.

Dog trainer and amateur sleuth extraordinaire, Jo Beth is in a heap of trouble. For openers, she has to dig herself out of a personal crisis. Confronted by her violent ex-husband, Bubba, Jo Beth ended the relationship for good -- with a bang. Now she has to rebuild her life and, in between, give a little help to her friends who are in dire need of a good detective.

She's on the trail of a prison escapee, a good ol' boy so wily that even Jo Beth's best hounds can't sniff him out. Meanwhile, she's busy tracking an elderly woman who has wandered off in the Okefenokee Swamp, and at the same time searching for the source of a rumor that resulted in three deaths.

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Bark M For Murder

Description

Who let the dogs out?

Evildoers beware! Four of mystery fiction's top storytellers are setting the hounds on your trail -- in an incomparable quartet of crime stories with a canine edge. Man's (and woman's) best friends take the lead in this phenomenal collection of tales tense and surprising, humorous and thrilling: New York Times bestselling author J.A. Jance's spellbinding saga of a scam-busting septuagenarian and her two golden retrievers; Anthony Award winner Virginia Lanier's pureblood thriller featuring bloodhounds and bloody murder; Chassie West's suspenseful stunner about a life-saving German shepherd and a ghastly forgotten crime; rising star Lee Charles Kelley's edge-of-your-seat yarn that pits an ex-cop/kennel owner and a yappy toy poodle against a craven killer.

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A Brace of Bloodhounds (Jo Beth Sidden, No. 3)

Description

The Sins Of The Past Must Be Paid For Again And Again And Again

When Gilly Ainsley shows up on Jo Beth sidden's doorstep, the smart and feisty bloodhound trainer and tracker is stunned by the woman's bizarre tale of deception and manslaughter. Gilly's mother wrote a letter before she died, a letter claiming that she would be murdered by the man for whom she kept house -- a superior court judge -- and Gilly want Jo Beth to bring the murderer to justice, at last.

Gilly's mother saw something she shouldn't have in the woods near the Okefenokee Swamp. Gilly and Jo Beth are in danger, too, and Jo Beth knows that the swamp guards its secrets well. To topple this fat cat judge will take someone who can see inside the criminal mind, train a pack of dogs to hunt out evil, and pursue an enemy until there is nothing left but the sweat on his palms.

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Set in a locale and a culture as rich and satisfying as good Southern cooking, Virginia Lanier's A Brace of Bloodhounds continues the adventures of JoBeth Sidden. JoBeth's a feisty Southern gal with an attitude, whose devotion to her highly trained and trusted bloodhounds involves her in kidnapping, corruption, drug smuggling, and every ornery law-enforcement puzzle that comes to light in her South Georgia town on the edge of the Okeefenokee Swamp. Lanier's adrenalin-pumping narratives, which began with The House on Bloodhound Lane and continued in Death in Bloodhound Red and Blind Bloodhound Justice, are told by JoBeth, who is alternately pulled and pushed by her loves: her extended family of friends and trainers, and her wonderful and appealing bloodhounds. In this volume, JoBeth seeks answers to a petition from beyond the grave, unearths a child molester, and faces a renegade alligator who threatens her pups. Along the way, we learn the rich details of mantrailing, Southern hospitality, modern moonshining, and--of course--romance. Those who have already made the acquaintance of Lanier's appealing family of characters will enjoy this installment. Newcomers will be thrilled that there are other books in the series. Pour a glass of fresh-made iced tea, kick back, and travel into the heart of this colorful and intriguing world. --Barbara Schlieper

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