Jade Dupree is a beautician and an undertakerβs assistant with a gift for smoothing the ravages of death from the faces of her clientele. But her strange talent isnβt the only thing that sets her apart from the townspeople of tiny Drexel, Mississippi.Β
Jade is half-black and the unacknowledged bastard daughter of Drexelβs βfirst lady,β the imperious Lucille Longier. Jadeβs half sister, the pale, fragile, and legitimate Marlena, is married to Lucas Bramlett, the wealthiest man in the region. While the entire town knows of the blood bond between the two women, no one dares speak the truth out loud.
Though her talents as a hairdresser are highly sought after by Drexelβs elite, Jade accepts that sheβll never truly be part of the town and lives her life the best she can. But on one hot summer day in 1952, Jadeβs world is turned inside out when Marlena, on a tryst with her lover, is savagely beaten and herΒ young daughter kidnapped. Determined to find her niece before itβs too late, Jade accepts help from a white sheriffβs deputy, Frank Kimble. The forbidden attraction that ignites between them threatens to add to the violence already brewing in town.
Carolyn Haines has written several acclaimed mysteries, but here she mines much darker, more serious territory,Β resulting in a suspenseful, lyrical, passionate, and literary crime novel.
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