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..."

The Magody Series

Future home of
the picture of
the cover of

"Mischief in Magody"

I just haven't scanned
it yet!

   

 

The Claire Malloy 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