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The enigmatic “Ode to Billie Joe” is the theme song for a deeply Southern mystery full of questions that may have no answers. Sarah Booth Delaney and her best friend, Tinkie Bellcase Richmond, are detectives rooted in the Mississippi Delta. Sarah Booth has a haint—that is, a ghost—named Jitty, who links her to the past but often plays tricks on her; they both live with Sarah Booth’s partner, Sunflower County Sheriff Coleman Peters, and a bunch of dogs, horses, and other pets on the plantation her parents owned before they died in a car crash. As she approaches the Tallahatchie Bridge in her car one day, the famous song about Billie Joe McAllister’s death by suicide playing on the radio, she thinks she sees someone jump. After calling 911, she stops by Tinkie’s house to tell her what happened, and right then Tinkie’s husband, Oscar, a banker, walks in and hires them to find Danny Anderson, an eighth-generation farmer he’s afraid may have killed himself because Oscar’s bank had to foreclose on his farm. Farmers are often on the edge of disaster; no matter their skills, they can’t control the weather, and drought has many on the verge of losing their farms. Finding Danny proves more difficult than Sarah Booth and Tinkie imagined, but when someone who looks like him starts robbing local stores, they push harder. Danny’s very close to Pearl Wingard, the wife of a local preacher, and rumors run wild about their relationship. Stories about Civil War treasure buried along the Tallahatchie River soon have Sarah Booth searching and getting shot at. There are no answers to the mystery of Billie Joe McAllister’s suicide. Can Sarah Booth and Tinkie solve their own complex puzzle? The best entry in this popular series. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.