LANIER, Virginia 1930–2003

PERSONAL: Born October 28, 1930, in Madison County, FL; died October 27, 2003, in Fargo, GA; married Robert "Hoss" Lanier (died, 2001); children: five sons.

CAREER: Mystery writer. Former bookkeeper, laundry worker, store credit manager, and catalog store manager.

MEMBER: American Bloodhound Club, Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, International Association of Mystery Writers.

AWARDS, HONORS: Anthony Award for Best First Mystery Novel, 1995, Agatha Award nominee, and Macavity Award nominee, all for Death in Bloodhound Red.

WRITINGS:

Death in Bloodhound Red, Pineapple Press (Sarasota, FL), 1995.

The House on Bloodhound Lane, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1996.

A Brace of Bloodhounds, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1997.

Blind Bloodhound Justice, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1998.

Ten Little Bloodhounds, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1999.

A Bloodhound to Die For, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2003.

SIDELIGHTS: Virginia Lanier had taken early disability retirement fifteen years prior to her unexpected career as a mystery writer. A former bookkeeper and catalog store manager, she casually complained that a book she had read was so poorly written that even she could do a better job. Her husband, Hoss, challenged her to try and got her started writing by going out and buying her a typewriter, dictionary, desk, and chair. Just five months later, the sixty-three-year-old Lanier had an 857-page manuscript completed, which was quickly accepted by a local publisher. This book, Death in Bloodhound Red, proved to be the award-winning start of a popular mystery series featuring sleuth Jo Beth Sidden and her trained bloodhounds.

When Lanier chose her setting for Death in Bloodhound Red, she opted to write about a place she knows well: southeastern Georgia and the Okefenokee Swamp, where she lived in a double-wide trailer on four acres of land. Her home was the only one on a twenty-eight-mile stretch of dirt road, making the swamp and its alligators her nearest neighbors. However, Lanier also chose to tackle a subject that was entirely new to her: bloodhounds. After spotting a beautiful bloodhound sitting in the back of a parked pickup truck, she decided to make her protagonist a bloodhound breeder and trainer. The author's expertise on bloodhounds was considered so great that she was often assumed to be a breeder herself.

Lanier's amateur detective, bloodhound lover Jo Beth Sidden, is introduced in Death in Bloodhound Red. Sidden assists the police in three counties with her scent-sniffing dogs, joining forces when they are trying to track missing persons. She also finds time to help out friends who have problems with the law. Sidden's penchant for helping others works against her, however, when she comes under investigation for attempted murder in the beating of her ex-husband Bubba, and she is unable to provide an alibi for herself without incriminating a friend she had been helping at the time of the attack. A reviewer of Death in Bloodhound Red for Publishers Weekly praised Lanier's debut mystery, with its "good-old-boy humor and action-packed adventure," as "a thorough, insider's look at a unique occupation." Writing for Library Journal, Rex E. Klett remarked that with "a leisurely pace punctuated by thrilling moments of action … [it is] a very appealing first novel."

The second book in Lanier's series is The House on Bloodhound Lane, in which Sidden's ex-husband Bubba is about to be paroled, possibly to make good on his threats to kill her. Meanwhile, she hopes that a blind bloodhound puppy will help find an important executive who has been buried alive. Cherie Jung, writing for Over My Dead Body, commented that readers would find that "Page after page will rush by as fast as you can turn them…. The cast of characters are memorable and the writing style is crisp and fast-paced." A Publishers Weekly reviewer compared the novel to the earlier book, finding that it "lacks the focused punch of the Lanier's debut, but Jo Beth's brash ingenuity and a wry sense of humor are intact."

A Brace of Bloodhounds is the third installment in the series. In this book, a woman named Gilly tells the bloodhound trainer that she has a message from her murdered mother, identifying her killer, and asks Sidden to help her prove the case. Sidden is also recruited to help find a child who has been kidnapped and hidden in the Okefenokee Swamp. Sidden also must continue to cope with being stalked by her ex-convict husband Bubba. In a review for Over My Dead Body, Jung commented on the supposed likeness of Lanier's work to that of Sue Grafton and Sara Paretsky: "I suppose comparisons can be made…. The protagonist is feisty and independent yet vulnerable. But don't avoid this series if you happen to not be a fan of other more famous female series writers." Jung praised Lanier's ability to interweave plot lines and create "wonderfully drawn characters."

Blind Bloodhound Justice, the fourth series entry, centers on a thirty-year-old murder case that has been on the mind of Sidden's friend Sheriff Cribbs. The convicted kidnapper/murderer who supposedly killed a nanny and abducted two babies, killing one child, has been released from prison and must report to Cribbs. Unable to reopen the case officially, Cribbs tempts Sidden's curiosity and encourages her to look into the case on her own. "Lanier shows an increasing mastery of plot and pacing to complement the established sass-appeal of the endearingly ornery Jo Beth," commented a reviewer for Publishers Weekly.

The action in Ten Little Bloodhounds commences with a request that Jo Beth locate a missing cat for an eccentric billionaire. When that billionaire turns up murdered, Jo Beth joins the investigation, all the while caring for a brood of bloodhound puppies and looking over her shoulder for the malevolent Bubba. Library Journal correspondent Francine Fialkoff cited the mystery for its "fascinating bloodhound lore and detection," while John Rowen, writing in Booklist, felt the book "offers sympathetic characters and vivid southern settings." A Publishers Weekly critic admired the "feisty, driven and relentlessly independent" Jo Beth, adding that after a perusal of Lanier's mysteries, "even the most avid dog-hater will be brought to heel."

Before her death in 2003, Lanier completed one more mystery set in rural Georgia, A Bloodhound to Die For. The author once told a Florida Times Union reporter that she invested a great deal of wishful thinking in her creation of Jo Beth Siddens. "I made Jo Beth a feminist because I've always wanted to be a feminist, but I've had to stay in the closet," she said. "She can do things I never could do. I had to keep my feminism hid. Hoss only found out about it in an Atlanta Journal story…. I enjoy Jo Beth having the freedom to say and do what she wants to." In another Florida Times Union piece, Linda Heinzman concluded that Lanier "is an engaging storyteller and a master of plot and pacing. Much like her bloodhounds, she leads us on a search, and the closer we get to solving the mystery, the more eager we are to race to the finish."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, April 15, 1999, John Rowen, review of Ten Little Bloodhounds, p. 1481; July, 2003, Jenny McLarin, review of A Bloodhound to Die For, p. 1870.

Dog Fancy, March, 1996, p. 14.

Florida Times Union, December 15, 1996, Ann Hyman, "That's Not All, She Wrote," p. H1; June 26, 1999, "A Mastermind and Her Canines," p. H4.

Kirkus Reviews, June 1, 1996, p. 784; June 15, 2003, review of A Bloodhound to Die For, p. 837.

Library Journal, February 1, 1995, p. 103; April 15, 1999, Francine Fialkoff, review of Ten Little Bloodhounds, p. 149; July, 2003, Rex Klett, review of A Bloodhound to Die For, p. 129.

Publishers Weekly, February 20, 1995, p. 199; June 17, 1996, pp. 50-51; May 5, 1997, p. 201; June 1, 1998, p. 48A; June 14, 1999, review of Ten Little Bloodhounds, p. 54; July 7, 2003, review of A Bloodhound to Die For, p. 56.

ONLINE

Over My Dead Body, http://www.overmydeadbody.com/ (August 1, 2005), Cherie Jung, review of The House on Bloodhound Lane, and A Brace of Bloodhounds.

Virginia Lanier Mystery Page, http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Meadows/1442/vlanier.htm (August 1, 2005).