Motherless Children: A Mississippi Delta Mystery

By Randall Luce

Williams Point is a Mississippi Delta cotton town. The land is black and fertile, the horizon cotton-white, and the humid air muffles dissonant insect harmonies. It's the summer of 1946.Sam Swain, the Chief of Police, believes that a community defines its people, and when the good and bad of Williams Point are known and balanced the result is something you can value. But when he investigates the murder of two prominent whites-Adelia "Auntie" Southworth and her niece Madeleine Lott, both poisoned by arsenic-Swain learns the truth can sound its own dissonances.Auntie and Madeleine are murdered in their home, among family and friends, who withhold information from Swain to impede his investigation. As he slowly exposes the truth behind these murders, Swain discovers other crimes and transgressions-long past and present-and his own complicity in what he finds."Faulkner and the blues drew me to the South. It seemed to me a place of fertile paradox. I spent two years in Mississippi, most of it in the Delta, learning from its people, both black and white, of its history and present day. They taught me much, with good grace and patience, always confident that they had a hell of a tale to tell. People have called the Delta the most southern place on earth. That may be true. But it also is a most American place. It's had it all: frontier striving, racial oppression and contest, rich and poor living cheek to jowl, exuberance and sophistication. I came with eyes wide open and left with an affection for the people I had come to know: all at once ordinary, heroic, and tragic. 'Motherless Children' is a down payment on the debt I owe them." - Randall Luce"The decline of a grand Southern family forms the backdrop of a rich, complicated mystery. In August of 1946, Sam Swain, Chief of Police of Williams Point, investigates the murders of Adelia "Auntie" Southworth and her niece, Madeleine. The plot unfolds over a hot, nervous week, but the author, in absolute control of the material, weaves a nearly fifty-year family saga into the narrative. The vivid language elevates the story, and the solution to the mystery ends up both unexpected and satisfying."-Publishers Weekly

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0615533140
• ISBN13: 9780615533148
• Release Date: December 2011
• Publisher: Hushpuckena Press
• Length: 412 Pages
• Weight: 1.22 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.9" x 5.3"