Augusta Goodnight

When Mary George Murphy finds that her Aunt Caroline fell down a flight of stairs to her death, she's heartbroken. To make matters worse, Mary is sure that Caroline's death was no accident. Enter Augusta Goodnight, Mary's guardian angel. Normally assigned to Heaven's strawberry fields, Augusta died during WWII - which explains her old-fashioned glamour and love of swing. She appears in Troublesome Creek just in the nick of time-helping Mary unearth an old mystery and the truth about Caroline's death.

Prentice Dobson has just lost her job, her boyfriend, almost everything that has until now made her feel complete. To collect her thoughts and mourn her younger sister's recent passing, Prentice leaves the city for her small hometown in Georgia. But there is no comfort to be found in the beloved town of her youth-the town is aquiver with the news that her Uncle Faris' grave has been dug up, perhaps by vandals. And Prentice begins to doubt the simple reasons she has been given for her sister's death. She needs help, desperately. Just in the nick of time, in steps the baggage-toting, wisecracking guardian angel, Augusta Goodnight, sent down from Heaven for just such emergencies. Perhaps Heaven's best angel-sleuth, Augusta usually tends to Heaven's vast strawberry fields, but for people at their wit's end, like Prentice, she is always on-call. In her guardian angel, Prentice finds the strength she needs to investigate the lives of her dead relatives, although, in the case of Augusta Goodnight, "dead" is relative. Resourceful, amiable, and literally down-to-earth, Augusta helps Prentice try to both uncover the reasons for her sister's death and cover her uncle's grave. Mignon F. Ballard's charming and funny mystery, starring the unstoppable Augusta Goodnight, is the second in a series hailed by critics as "heavenly."

After the sudden death of her husband, Minda Hobbs returns to Angel Heights, S.C., the home of her forebears, to seek peace and purpose in her life. Instead, she finds her n'er-do-well cousin Otto as cold and stiff as yesterday's grits in the ladies' room at the historic Minerva Academy. Shocked by her cousin's murder and still grieving over the loss of her husband, Minda has mixed emotions when she's greeted by her guardian angel, Augusta Goodnight. Shimmering with church window radiance, and smelling of strawberry jam, Augusta is a temp who's come on a double mission-to help Minda solve Otto's murder and to take care of unfinished business from an assignment in 1916. Even though Otto could be unbearable at times, an annoying laugh is hardly cause for murder. Minda's only lead is a tiny gold pin, found wedged in a Minerva Academy bathroom stall, and its connection to a club called the Mystic Six. Together, Minda and Augusta trace the descendents of this secret society, piecing together clues that lead to a special quilt and the mystery behind Cousin Otto's unfortunate demise.

When Kate McBride returns to her hometown of Bishop's Bridge, North Carolina, for a family reunion, she expects questions about her husband's conspicuous absence. What she doesn't expect is murder. Soon after arriving, Kate finds her great uncle's housekeeper, Ella Stegall, badly injured and incoherent, at the bottom of a wooded ravine after an apparent fall from a ledge. But moments before losing consciousness, Ella whispers she was pushed-not surprising, considering that Bramblewood, Uncle Ernest's woodsy estate, is no stranger to murder and intrigue. Could Ella's accident be connected to Bramblewood's mysterious past, or was her claim just the rambling of a delirious old woman? Poor Ella slips away before leaving more clues to her death. Now Kate must come to terms with disturbing doubts about close family members while coping with her troubled young daughter. Luckily, for Kate, guardian angel Augusta Goodnight has dropped by to help, this time with a bumbling young apprentice in tow. With fresh baked goods and sound, heavenly advice, Augusta helps Kate investigate Ella's untimely demise-and a few other unsolved mysteries along the way.

Things in the town of Stone's Throw, South Carolina, rarely get much spicier than the extra red pepper Lucy Nan Pilgrim sprinkles into her homemade cheese straws. So when an elderly but surprisingly childlike woman calling herself Shirley shows up on Lucy's doorstep looking for her mama, Lucy thinks it must be another of her friend Ellis's pranks. But Ellis doesn't know a thing about it, and what's more, the two suspect the woman might be Ellis's cousin, Florence, who disappeared as a child more than fifty years earlier. When the mysterious woman vanishes from Lucy's house, she and Ellis don't know what to think. And considering that Calpernia Hemphill, the town's theater and music aficionado, has just been found dead of an apparent fall from the tower at Bertram's Folly, life in Stone's Throw suddenly seems less safe than sinister. Luckily, guardian angel Augusta Goodnight shows up to calm Lucy's nerves (with a basket of strawberry muffins, of course). And not a moment too soon, because Shirley/Florence is found dead at the bottom of a steep flight of steps in the parking lot behind the Methodist church. She is not the last victim, and Ellis, whose inheritance could be threatened by the reappearance of her long-lost cousin, remains the number-one suspect. Augusta, Lucy, and the Thursday Morning Literary Society (which now meets on Monday afternoons) must use their heads--and a little bit of home cooking--to solve the mystery.

It's Christmastime in the seemingly tranquil town of Stone's Throw, South Carolina, but amid all the caroling, cookies, and cheer, a murderer casts a not-so-jolly pall on the holiday season. Augusta Goodnight, guardian angel, sometime sleuth, and welcome boarder with longtime resident Lucy Nan Pilgrim, comes to the aid of her friends when, as Lucy Nan is searching for the perfect Christmas tree on her grandmother's abandoned estate, a mysterious stranger plummets to his death from the mansion's balcony. Lucy Nan can't shake off childhood stories of the ghost of a girl who fell from the same spot long ago---has the ghost come back to haunt the living, or is there an all-too-human murderer at work? Mysterious events are soon heating up faster than spiced punch left on the burner, and it will take Augusta's help, not to mention some celestial Southern cooking, for peace to be restored and Christmas lights to shine once again in the little town of Stone's Throw.

Augusta Goodnight, heavenly sleuth and guardian angel, is a welcome boarder with longtime resident Lucy Nan Pilgrim in the seemingly tranquil town of Stone's Throw, South Carolina. And Augusta's divine intervention is needed now more than ever. The local college is the kind of safe place where students don't even lock their doors. At least it used to be, until girls started mysteriously disappearing. When the body of another student, D. C. Hunter, is found in a shed by the lake, Lucy and Augusta must race to figure out if her murder is connected to the deaths of two other girls. Should Augusta focus on the English professor who was having an affair with D.C.? Or on the seemingly cheerful caretaker who happened to discover two of the bodies? And what is the meaning of the "Jabberwocky" clues that keep turning up around campus? It will take some heavenly help--and a little home cooking--to restore the peace of the town.