Hang My Head And Cry - Softcover

Santangelo, Elena

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1933523050 ISBN 13: 9781933523057

Publisher: Bella Rosa Books, 2006

Synopsis

HANG MY HEAD AND CRY is Elena Santangelo's second novel featuring Pat Montella. Her first novel, BY BLOOD POSSESSED, was an Agatha Award Finalist for Best First Novel. She is also an award-winning writer of short mysteries and ghost tales. Book Description: All Pat Montella wanted was a few fresh-off-the-vine tomatoes. Now that she'd moved from an apartment to live with ninety-one-year-old Miss Maggie Shelby in the retired history teacher's old farmhouse, Pat can finally plant a garden. She picks the spot for it on a whim, after a recurring dream in which a young boy tells her where to dig. As she tills the soil, though, a human skull surfaces. Miss Maggie calls in prominent anthropologist Dr. Emmy Brewster to help solve the historical mystery. However, her assistant, Theo Clayborne, a statuesque and sexy black man with the most beautiful voice Pat's ever heard, quickly becomes the prime suspect in a string of local shootings. Then the ghost of that young boy returns to Pat's dreams, this time with a warning...

About this title

Review

Pat Montella, heroine of Elena Santangelo's previous romantic mystery By Blood Possessed, is back in another adventure. As the unpaid director of the Julia Bell Foundation, Pat's collecting unemployment and living on...Magnolia Shelby's Civil War-era estate in Virginia while she waits for her own future to reveal itself. But it's the past that comes clear first when the amateur archaeological efforts of Aunt Maggie and her friends unearth a long-dead body on the property Pat will someday inherit. And it's Pat's unique ability to "see" back to 1870 (and reconstruct through the eyes of a 10-year-old boy named Emancipation the circumstances under which the skeleton met its end) that turns the somewhat creaky wheels of the plot.

More interesting than the contemporary action (which includes a couple of murders connected to secrets that some of Aunt Maggie's neighbors would just as soon stay buried) are the flashbacks to Reconstruction, the racial politics of the post-slavery years, and the fascinating cast of characters who populated Bell Run back then and whose ghosts still haunt the Virginia countryside. This slow-moving but nicely written ghost story should win Santangelo and her heroine new fans. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly

The past continues to catch up with Pat Montella both literally and figuratively in this captivating sequel to Santangelo's well-received debut, By Blood Possessed (1999). Pat's gift for seeing and hearing ghosts continues to manifest itself with vivid snippets of the past, as if from old newsreels. Miss Maggie Shelby, scion of the Virginia Civil War estate owned by the Bell family, who discovered that Pat is the last descendant of the Bells, continues to preside over Pat's metamorphosis from office worker to heir to a Southern tradition. Pat's finding an unknown gravesite and the disturbing appearance of the ghost of a former slave boy named "Mance" (short for Emancipation) begins a story of old wrongs whose roots reach into the present. The discovery of the grave brings welcome help in the form of Emmy Brewster and her handsome assistant, Theo Clayborne. It also brings unwanted help in the form of police and politicians eager to make hay from the excitement. After Pat's visions of the past intensify, she discovers she's not the only one who has such visions. When Theo becomes the prime suspect in the death of his best friend, Pat is driven to solve both old deaths and new with surprising results. Ghosts, murder, romance, Old South, New South, an aristocratic old lady, a gaggle of good ol' boys and an intrepid heroine add up to fine and cozy entertainment.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bella Rosa Books
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1933523050
• ISBN 13: 9781933523057
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 284