Joan Hess, Something
Great From Arkansas
Joan Hess has two story lines going. One takes place in the tiny,
jerkwater, redneck town of Magody (rhymes with "raggedy")
and the other takes place in a slightly larger college town of
Farberville, both in Arkansas which is, surprisingly, where
Joan Hess is from and where she works as a law enforcement officer.
The Magody books feature Police Chief Arly Hanks, who
according to her own mother, Ruby B Hanks came slinking
back to Magody when she failed to make her marriage work and is
probably going to up and leave again without so much as a howdy
or a by your leave and break her mother's heart, again, Missy!
Arly is about the only sane person in a town populated, for the
most part, by the inbred Buchanon clan, some of whom married 1st
cousins and others who live with pigs. Real pigs. Right in the
living room watching television and everything. And most of whom
have dull, yellow eyes.
The Claire Malloy books take place, as mentioned, in Farberville
an hour of so away from Magody, where Clair and her teenage daughter
live. Clair is trying to make a go at running her used book store
near the campus, where her late husband worked, but she has better
luck stumbling onto murder cases. And solving them.
In both series, Arly and Clair are much smarter than most of
the people around them. But then, isn't that what life is like
in Arkansas?
There are about two dozen books between these two series with
an average of one new book per year coming out (oh, how I wish
there were more!!!), some of which are being reprinted these days.
These are funny, yet cleaver mysteries that I am sure you will
enjoy.
Joan also writes short stories and has been the editor on several
collections of short mysteries. And, she wrote a book called "Red
Rover, Red Rover" in 1998 which I haven;t found, but I believe
it was aimed at the young teenage market.
I've put up the covers for many of these books; most from the
editions I own and some from the currently available paperbacks.
These are might be listed in the order they were published. At
least, they are in the order listed in the newest book as "Other
books in this series..."
All covers are and remain
the copyright of the artist or artists who originally gave
them life. Unless, that is, some publisher paid them a few
pounds more to buy the rights away. I have not obtained
permission to replicate them, but hope that these fine individuals
and international conglomerates recognize that I am just
trying to help promote interest (and sales) in their books
|
|