Lineages and Lies
Nick Herald Genealogical Mystery
By Jimmy Fox  

     As a genealogist for over 20 years, Lineages and Lies was instantly appealing to me.

     The setting is New Orleans, LA. Nick Herald is a former English professor, but is now pursuing his real love and obsession: genealogy. Trouble seems to follow him, and he doubles as an amateur sleuth. Nick begins to investigate the prominent Society of the Allegorie. The original passengers were supposed to have come to New Orleans on the famed French ship. Nick has a crazy concept that the ship was not all it claimed to be, and as he begins to investigate in order to prove his own theory, bodies seem to appear from all different nooks and crannies.

      Nick is assisted by Hawty Latimer, a woman in a wheelchair, but who defies anybody to think of her as disabled. If there was ever a handicapped person who rues the hand fate has dealt them, they should read this book. Hawty is a force to be reckoned with.

     The entire book is jam-packed with some of the most delightful and off-key characters I have found in a book for a long time. They add to the plot, as Nick wanders from office to library to high society, eventually ending up with a position in the Society itself, where he has full access to the secret books, which he is sure contain the answers to the unsolved mystery of the ship.

     The plot line of the ship and its counterpart is so believable, I found myself going to my own genealogical library to see if I could find out more about the story. When I found nothing, I contacted Jimmy Fox to see where he had found his facts. To my surprise, he admitted that the plot existed solely in his mind. It was a masterfully-woven story, the likes of which are usually based on fact, but so realistic that it easily could have been.

     Lineages and Lies is the second Nick Herald Genealogical Mystery; the first one was Deadly Pedigree. I have to get my hands on that one, and then wait a bit impatiently for Jimmy Fox to finish the next Nick Herald Mystery.