Product Description

Lanier does for bloodhounds what Dick Francis does for racehorses in heratmospheric, and critically applauded, novels set in rural Georgia.

Jo Beth Sidden is a fiercely independent woman who raises and trains bloodhounds for search-and-rescue missions and to track down escaped prisoners in South Georgia's Okefenokee Swamp. Jo Beth's got her hands full when the local police chief hires her to sniff out a local marijuana grower and a friend asks her to locate a kidnapped man -- even though the FBI is on the case. And when her sociopath of an ex-husband Bubba gets out of prison and begins stalking her, Jo Beth will need to use all her skills --and her bloodhounds --to outwit Bubba, to help the police and to best the FBI.

"Lanier's writing blends white-hot intensity with a lyrical sense of place that can render even a sticky humid Okefenokee Swamp as a setting I can't wait to visit again."

-Margaret Maron, bestselling author and winner of the Edgar, Agatha and Anthony Awards

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #387829 in Books
• Published on: 1997-07-01
• Released on: 1997-05-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 384 pages

From Publishers Weekly
The episodic sequel to Death in Bloodhound Red finds Georgia dog trainer Jo Beth Sidden coping with an enlarged staff and an upcoming week-long training seminar. Before the seminar begins, the sheriff asks her to check out a deputy he suspects of growing and selling marijuana. He also tells her about a local kidnapping that's pulled in the FBI and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Jo Beth hears that her abusive ex-husband, Bubba, who has vowed to harm her, has been paroled. While trying to keep herself and her students safe from him, she helps a friend's fiance retrieve buried money and gets a boyfriend of her own. An old friend, the security guard of the kidnapped man's firm, involves her in that case, too. While juggling responsibilities both large and small, Jo Beth recounts past triumphs of her 87 dogs and thoroughly describes the raising and training of bloodhounds. The fragmented story line here lacks the focused punch of the Lanier's debut, but Jo Beth's brash ingenuity and a wry sense of humor are intact.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
As if turning 30 isn't traumatic enough, feisty Jo Beth Sidden of Basla City, Georgia, has invested the $70,000 she inherited from her father into the business of putting 57 bloodhounds through six months of rigorous training. Six of those well-prepared hounds will go to work for law-enforcement masters. Meanwhile, Jo Beth has enough on her plate for a veritable smorgasbord during the nine eventful days of this serial-like novel. First and worst, her brutal wife-beating ex-husband Bubba has been released from prison. She was in the hospital for six months after his last rampage, which is why Jo Beth has security gates around her compound. Next, she helps her friend Sheri find a buried treasure of $100,000, left by Sheri's would-be father-in-law. And in between the pieces of Jo Beth's tell-all first-person narration there's the story of a man who's been kidnapped by his three sons and stuffed into a large container. You can figure that Jo Beth and her very talented if blind hound Bobby Lee will sniff out that man. She'll also rescue Mary Ann, a young woman who's been kidnapped by religious nutcase Preston Little; persuade a deputy not to grow and sell marijuana; and meet up with Chief Jonathan Webber of the Eppley Police Department, who takes a real shine to Jo Beth--and vice versa. A meandering, episodic second from Lanier (Death in Bloodhound Red, not reviewed), with an amiable Brett Butlerlike narrator and a cliffhanger of an ending. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About the Author
Virginia Lanier lives with her husband, Hoss, on the edge of the Okefenokee Swamp in Echols County, Georgia.

Customer Reviews

A lovable canine hero
In this, the second of Virginia Lanier's suspenseful and entertaining series, we're treated to more adventures of Jo Beth Sidden, feminist, good ol' girl and woman of much guile. Her cleverness and resourcefulness rise to the occasion in a number of subplots, but the main mystery concerns the search for a man who's been buried alive. Old friends from "Death in Bloodhound Red" return, and we meet new ones, including a love interest for Jo Beth (a relationship that starts off most inauspiciously and hilariously). The real hero, however, is a blind-from-birth bloodhound puppy of exceptional brilliance named Bobby Lee. He's a truly lovable character, delightfully portrayed. Dog people and readers who like a Southern setting and/or a strong female protagonist should not miss this series.

Lanier Has Done it Again
As Lanier did in her first book, she grabs you and pulls you into the swamp with feminist Jo Beth. Her description is remarkable making you feel a dog leash yanking on your arm, or a mosquito biting you. This book has everything you could ask for, action, romance, mystery, and deception.

Very enjoyable,lots of humor and suspense.
I picked up this book at the grocery store because I was desperate[nothing to read!],what a pleasant surprise!Since I had never heard of the author or this series of 'bloodhound'books,I gambled 6 bucks and I won!

The heroine,Jo Beth Sidden,has a bloodhound training complex with assorted interesting employees and different plot lines make the book interesting from beginning to end.

I will be definitly be reading the rest of the books in this series!

Kim Vei