I was a teen in the 1960s when Bobbie Gentry’s enigmatic song about Billy Joe and the Tallahatchie Bridge became an overnight sensation. The song came out in 1967. I was fourteen. That song was like a bolt of lightning through my soul. I knew these people—I knew the circumstances they faced. I knew the heat and the garden work and the suffocation of small town judgment.
I grew up playing at Merrill, Mississippi where the Chickasawhay and Leaf rivers join to create the Pascagoula. I’ve been up on the railroad bridge (I’m too old to be arrested now!) and watched the muddy waters mingle and flow. Not too many years later, as a cub reporter for the weekly paper in my hometown, I was back on the Pascagoula to watch the recovery of three bodies—contemporaries who had drowned. The river gives and the river takes.
My grandmother emigrated to America from Sweden in 1892. She was six. Her father and brothers were loggers brought down to Mississippi to cut the pine timber and hardwoods needed for houses and furniture. The men would cut the trees, haul them by oxen teams to the river, tie them together, and float them down the Pascagoula to the sawmill in Jackson County. It was a hard life, and the river was the means of transportation for many things.
I grew up hearing stories about this time. I played at the junction of the river with my friends Diana Hobby and Janice Byrd. We were feral children free to roam and play and use our imagination—but never to get in the river.
When “Ode to Billy Joe” came out, all of those memories combined with the turmoil of the 1960s to electrify me and compel me to also be a storyteller. I don’t sing (and you’d better thank your lucky stars I don’t try!) but I wanted to capture time, place, and people in stories. My high school English teacher, and also my namesake, Carolyn Nyman, gave me a book of Eudora Welty stories and for the first time in my reading life, I realized that all that surrounded me, all of my unique childhood experiences, were the fodder for creating stories.
While writing Sarah Booth and the Zinnia gang books, I have driven and explored a lot of my home state. The Delta is a special place to me. That Tallahatchie River is a conduit to so much in my imagination.
The idea for ODE TO THE BONES came to me one day as I was driving around the world I live in now (Semmes, Alabama, the nursery capital of the world) and the song played on the radio. I had to pull over and jot down the ideas that came tumbling out of my brain. My subconscious had been very busy, it seems.
While I wrote this book, I listened to the song again and again. I thought for sure, the mystery would be revealed to me. It never was. I don’t know what was thrown off the bridge. I suspect, but I don’t know. Why did Billy Joe McAllister commit suicide? I don’t know for sure.
The old bridge Gentry sings about is gone. Destroyed by fire. The new bridge doesn’t have the mystique. But the river is still there, as silent and mysterious as ever.
In my story, ODE TO THE BONES, a young farmer disappears. It is feared he committed suicide because the bank is about to foreclose on his farm. In figuring out where he is and if he’s safe, Sarah Booth and friends stir up some older ghosts too. And you know how I love a good ghost story.
I so love writing these books. It’s hard for me to tell you this is the second to last book in the series. Book #30. I wanted to end this series in the way I’d always planned. The last book pokes into the true circumstances of Sarah Booth’s parents and how they died. It will be out Oct. 27 and is called JOY TO THE BONES (Book #31). I have truly loved these stories and all the Zinnia characters. I hope Gertrude is one of your favorite nemeses (and yes, she reappears!)
I want to thank each reader who has come along for this 30-year-ride with me. Sarah Booth and friends are like family to me. I dream about them. Who knows what the future will bring, but know that I am still writing, still working, and still being a wise-acre at every chance I get. I hope you enjoy the book. And please sign up for my newsletter on my website.
Sarah Booth Delaney Mystery #30
The next novel in the series that Kirkus Reviews characterizes as “Stephanie Plum meets the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” featuring sassy Southern private investigator Sarah Booth Delaney.
Private investigator Sarah Booth Delaney returns to her Mississippi Delta roots, hoping that long drives through cotton fields and the companionship of her dogs will ease her restless spirit. Instead, she’s confronted by a ghostly vision of a woman in white on the Tallahatchie Bridge, who disappears before Sarah Booth can investigate further.
When the local bank president hires her to find a missing farmer, Danny Anderson, Sarah Booth is forced to shift her focus back to the land of the—hopefully—still living. Danny is about to lose his family’s generational farm to foreclosure and is rumored to be entangled in a secret affair with a preacher’s wife. As Sarah Booth and her feisty partner Tinkie dig deeper, they uncover a web of gossip, ghost sightings, and a shadowy land buyer snapping up vulnerable farms.
With the help of her resident ghost-turned-spiritual-guide, Jitty, and her own unrelenting instincts, Sarah Booth must unravel the mystery of Danny’s disappearance, confront a town full of half-truths, and decipher the cryptic clues left behind—including those wrapped in lyrics and riverwater. But someone is watching her every move, and if she isn’t careful, she may be the next body swept away by the Tallahatchie’s current.
Women's Fiction Southern | Mystery Private Eye | Horror [ St. Martin’s Press, On Sale: May 26, 2026, Hardcover / e-Book, ISBN: 9781250377678 / eISBN: 9781250377685 ]
A man goes missing near the Tallahatchie Bridge
Carolyn Haines is the USA Today bestselling author of over 80 published books, including the long-running Sarah Booth Delaney mystery series. DOGGONE BONES is the newest in the series. Haines is also the founder of Good Fortune Farm Refuge, a "retirement home" for (currently) 7 dogs, 12 cats, and 2 horses. A lifelong animal rescuer, she loves caring for the animals and writing books. You can learn more about her and subscribe to her newsletter on her website.
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