Benni Harper is coming home to Sugartree, Arkansas. The folk-art historian, ranchwoman, and unwitting detective of Earlene Fowler's Agatha Award-winning series is back in the Ozarks for Sugartree Baptist Church's Homecoming festivities. Benni's brought both her husband, Gabe, and her best friend, Elvia Aragon, from California for the occasion, which promises to be a celebration of the best of small-town Southern life. For Benni that will always carry "the memory of muggy Arkansas summer nights filled with the scent of sweet honeysuckle, fresh-mowed grass, and the taste of half-melted Dairy Queen chocolate sundaes."

But Benni's nostalgia is cut short abruptly when the worst of small-town Southern life rears its ugly head. Benni's childhood friend, Amen Tolliver, is running for mayor against incumbent Grady Hunter, whose son Toby--a fledgling white supremacist--will do anything to make sure a black woman doesn't win his father's office. When Toby is found with his head beaten in, and Amen's nephew Quinton becomes the prime suspect, Benni's idealism takes a backseat to curiosity--and to the painful consequences of exposing both the prejudices and the skeletons that Sugartree residents would prefer to keep deep in the closet.

Fowler is perhaps more concerned with local color than with the rigors of mystery plotting, lovingly creating a world bound by faith, friends, and food--especially food. Witness Benni's soliloquy to Ozark comestibles, sparked by her first glimpse in years of a Piggly Wiggly grocery store: "'Blue Bunny and Yarnell's ice cream,' I said gleefully. 'Delta Gold syrup. White Lily flour. Aunt Nellie's corn relish. Martha White cornmeal. Crowder peas! Eight flavors of grits. Eight! You can't get that in California.'" But so appealing are Fowler's characters and so enticing is that world, that the novel's essentially anticlimactic denouement will probably seem of little importance. Fowler is rapidly proving herself a master of the American cozy, and the Benni Harper series continues to improve with each outing. --Kelly Flynn


From Publishers Weekly
If your image of quilters is that of old ladies whiling away the hours in rocking chairs or at looms, then perhaps you've not met Benni Harper, the frisky director of the Josiah Sinclair Folk Art museum in San Celina, Calif. In her eighth winning outing (after 2000's Seven Sisters), Benni returns to her hometown of Sugartree, Ark., accompanied by her friend Elvia, and finds relatives and friends embroiled in racial, religious and romantic rivalries that turn their reunion into disunion. Sugartree, population 5,000, has its share of bigots, hidden and overt, and two events have already stirred them up. Benni's friend Amen Tolliver, a black woman, is running for mayor against wealthy white incumbent Grady Hunter. And Sugartree's two Baptist churches, one black, one white, are discussing a merger that has deeply divided both congregations. Being Hispanic, both Elvia and Benni's husband, Gabe Ortiz, attract unwelcome attention after Gabe's arrival, threatening the blooming romance between Elvia and Benni's cousin Emory. When the ugliness leads to murder, Amen's election chances are jeopardized and an innocent young man is arrested. However, there are also plenty of decent people in Sugartree and a lot of great food, memories and humor. Benni needs all her vaunted spunk to solve a killing that threatens to scar the town she loves, as Fowler delivers cozy entertainment without resorting to unrealistically syrupy solutions. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


Book Description
Soon after arriving in Sugartree, Arkansas-where she spent many lazy, languid childhood summers-folk art expert Benni Harper discovers that there's something seriously sinister brewing in this usually-peaceful small town...

"The sweet sentimentality of this paean to small Southern towns...is the glaze that holds this story together." (Houston Chronicle)

"Winning...Fowler delivers cozy entertainment without resorting to unrealistically syrupy solutions." (Publishers Weekly)


Download Description
"Not much is known about the Arkansas Traveler quilt pattern. It is a fairly old pattern most likely dated by quilt historians through its name. ?Arkansas Traveler? was a popular folk song and skit whose origin has been traced back to the middle of the nineteenth century. It is usually credited to Colonel Sanford ?Sandy? Faulkner, a Little Rock plantation owner who claimed the tale was inspired by a real conversation with an Arkansas backwoodsman. The Arkansas Traveler quilt pattern is actually more than one pattern?one is a spool-like design, the other is a four-pointed star made of diamonds. The patterns have also been called Secret Drawer, Travel Star, Spools, and Cowboy Star. Agatha Award-winning author Earlene Fowler has earned unprecedented acclaim for her ?compelling? (Booklist), ?brilliantly crafted? (The Mystery Zone) mysteries featuring folk-art expert Benni Harper. It seems that no matter where Benni goes, she finds a crime that needs solving?and her trip to Arkansas is no exception?

FROM OUR EDITORS

Folk-art expert Benni Harper is thrilled to be back in Sugartree, Arkansas, with her friend Elvira, who's this close to getting engaged to Benni's cousin. But Benni's got a bad feeling that she just can't shake, and soon she knows why. Racism has come to Sugartree and it's rearing its ugly head as the merger of two churches with racially mixed congregations comes under fire, and the first black woman to run for mayor faces opposition from a gang of white supremacists. And when one of the supremacists gets himself killed, Benni gets snagged by a murder mystery, unraveling clues that form a very shocking pattern.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Soon after arriving in Sugartree, Arkansas-where she spent many lazy, languid childhood summers-folk art expert Benni Harper discovers that there's something seriously sinister brewing in this usually-peaceful small town...

FROM THE CRITICS

Houston Chronicle

The sweet sentimentality of this paean to small Southern towns...is the glaze that holds this story together.

Publishers Weekly

If your image of quilters is that of old ladies whiling away the hours in rocking chairs or at looms, then perhaps you've not met Benni Harper, the frisky director of the Josiah Sinclair Folk Art museum in San Celina, Calif. In her eighth winning outing (after 2000's Seven Sisters), Benni returns to her hometown of Sugartree, Ark., accompanied by her friend Elvia, and finds relatives and friends embroiled in racial, religious and romantic rivalries that turn their reunion into disunion. Sugartree, population 5,000, has its share of bigots, hidden and overt, and two events have already stirred them up. Benni's friend Amen Tolliver, a black woman, is running for mayor against wealthy white incumbent Grady Hunter. And Sugartree's two Baptist churches, one black, one white, are discussing a merger that has deeply divided both congregations. Being Hispanic, both Elvia and Benni's husband, Gabe Ortiz, attract unwelcome attention after Gabe's arrival, threatening the blooming romance between Elvia and Benni's cousin Emory. When the ugliness leads to murder, Amen's election chances are jeopardized and an innocent young man is arrested. However, there are also plenty of decent people in Sugartree and a lot of great food, memories and humor. Benni needs all her vaunted spunk to solve a killing that threatens to scar the town she loves, as Fowler delivers cozy entertainment without resorting to unrealistically syrupy solutions. (Apr. 10) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Benni Harper (Seven Sisters, 2000, etc.) has come a long way from Blevins County, Arkansas, where she spent much of her youth eating cheese grits and raising hell with her cousin Emory Littleton and best friend Amen Tolliver in the poky little town of Sugartree. Now a museum curator married to sexy police chief Gabriel Ortiz, of San Celina, California, sophisticated Benni, back for a family reunion, can snicker along with her chic amiga Elvia Aragon-who's engaged to Emory and who's come with Benni to meet her family-at the pig-snout headgear on the Razorback fans who gather for breakfast at the local Waffle House. Grown-up Benni can shake her head in wonder as her ever-competitive Grandma Dove and Aunt Garnet end up making duplicate breakfasts for the family. Broadminded Benni can sympathize as the members of Sugartree Baptist Church consider shoring up their dwindling congregation through a merger with predominantly black church. But activist Benni can't ignore the slights and slurs aimed at dark-skinned folk, including her beloved Gabe, Elvia, and Amen, by some of Sugartree's townsfolk-loudest among them Toby Hunter, son of mayor Grady Hunter, whom Amen has the audacity to challenge in the current election. So when Toby is bludgeoned to death and Amen's nephew Quinton is arrested, what choice does Benni have but to ignore her husband's warning and search for Toby's killer? Not so much an Arkansas Traveler as a Log Cabin quilt marked by endless repetition: Racism bad, Benni clever, you can't go home again.