Mama Cracks a Mask of Innocence
By Nora Deloach
(Bantam, Mass Market Paperback, 9780553577242, 208pp.)
Publication Date: June 26, 2001
Categories: Mystery & Detective - Women Sleuths
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There's not a killer in the world who can hide from Mama....
Dark encounters and deadly lessons
I was happy to volunteer a few days back home to help Mama distribute clothing to the needy. But I didn't expect big-city dangers to follow me all the way to Otis, South Carolina.
Instead of doing good deeds and cooking up a storm, Mama was digging deep into shady secrets after young Brenda Long was discovered dead in a shallow grave. Someone wanted Brenda silenced bad enough to kill, and the list of suspects is long.
But is the killer the drug-dealing teacher that Brenda threatened to expose? Or can it have been the man who was sent to jail after Brenda caught him stealing — now paroled and bent on exacting his revenge?
Everyone knows that Mama has had good luck as the town's unofficial sleuth. But as a maze of tangled relationships leads to dead ends and dead bodies, time is slipping away. For our worst enemies can masquerade as friends — and even Mama's luck can run out....
"[Mama] is a delight."
— Rendezvous
"Grace Covington [has been] dubbed the African-American Miss Marple."
— The San Diego Union-Tribune
"Nora DeLoach is a wonderful storyteller.... Fans will remember Mama and Simone as two of the best stars of down-home mysteries."
— The Midwest Book Review
"[Nora DeLoach] deserves considerable credit for ... demonstrating that the convention of the English cozy can be transplanted successfully to the American South."
— Publishers Weekly











