MAMA ROCKS THE EMPTY CRADLE

Two things Mama knows: sweet-potato pie...and murder.

Old bones and buried secrets...

I would have thought a bunion operation might slow Mama down, but I should have known better. We found ourselves knee-deep in somebody else's trouble even before the surgery, when we saw crazy old Miss Birdie at the grocery store with a baby that didn't belong to her. It wasn't twenty-four hours later that the baby's mother, a young woman with a wild reputation, was murdered--and the baby had vanished.

And when my Daddy's wandering dog began bringing home old bones of the most shocking kind, no way Mama wasn't going to start snooping--with me doing her legwork. It's a good thing I still had two good feet, because before long, I was running for my life...as babies' cries and women's tears mingled in a crime fueled by motives as ancient as human memory--greed, jealousy, and old-fashioned revenge.

Nora DeLoach is an Orlando, Florida, native presently living in Decatur, Georgia.  She is married and the mother of three.  Her novels include three previous Mama mysteries.  She is at work on her fifth.