Digging Up the Dirt (Southern Ladies Mystery #3) by Miranda James

There are a lot of reasons classic cozies are my favorite to read. It is always a pleasant surprise when I find a modern cozy series that has that unmistakable classic cozy charm. Digging Up the Dirt (Southern Ladies Mystery #3) by Miranda James has proven that this series has what it takes to sit on my shelf with the greats.

From the back of the book:

The New York Times bestselling author of Dead with the Wind and Bless Her Dead Little Heart is back with more of those sleuthing Southern belles, the Ducote sisters...

An’gel and Dickce Ducote, busy with plans for the Athena Garden Club’s spring tour of grand old homes, are having trouble getting the other club members to help. The rest of the group is all a-flutter now that dashing and still-eligible Hadley Partridge is back to restore his family mansion. But the idle chatter soon turns deadly serious when a body turns up on the Partridge estate after a storm...

The remains might belong to Hadley’s long-lost sister-in-law, Callie, who everyone thought ran off with Hadley years ago. And if it’s not Callie, who could it be? As the Ducotes begin uncovering secrets, they discover that more than one person in Athena would kill to be Mrs. Partridge. Now An’gel and Dickce will need to get their hands dirty if they hope to reveal a killer’s deep-buried motives before someone else’s name is mud.

My thoughts:

The Ducote Sisters are what makes this so special for me. I miss seeing the sweet, sassy, intelligent older woman of the classics and find it a breath of fresh air to have them both in the lead. All of the secondary characters have a respect for them, even the police which makes this extra charming. There were some new characters in this part that I sure look forward to seeing more of, as well as a nice mention of the Cat in Stacks character and kitty to which this great series has it's root.

This mystery had a lot going on and many reasonable suspects. I loved that the plots twined, un-twined, and twined some more, making it hard to separate and figure out. It has a sweet pacing and adorable setting that was easy to fall into. I love the garden club and hope my next visit with the sisters comes soon.

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