Carolyn Haines is a wonderful Southern writer of mystery and suspense fiction. Her "Bones" series features Sarah Booth Delaney, who has come home to the Mississippi Delta to try to save her family home, Dahlia House. She is assisted in this by the ghost of her great-great-grandmother's slave nanny, Jitty. The first novel in the series is Them Bones, and it's a good place to start. The series is a wonderful combination of humor, rich characterizations, a vividly described setting, and memorable plot lines.