Southern Comfort

Courtesy of CK2S kwips and Kritiques Hardesty Arnaud is a West Point graduate and a war hero returned to her home in the Louisiana bayou. She had just been hired as the Chief of Police in St. Martine, her hometown. Her years away with the military made her long for home, and realize that her family is what is most important to her life. Nick Brannigan is an FBI agent in New York City. He was raised on the streets, heading for trouble, until his foster mother found and adopted him. He has spent every day since trying to prove to her that he is worth everything she put into raising him. His greatest ambition is to become the first black director of the FBI. Within a week of taking on the position of police chief, Hardie has her first, and likely most difficult case, a murder. And not just any murder, but a murder involving the mob. Her entire town, excepting a couple people, is convinced she can't handle the job as police chief, let alone, solve a murder. Not only is she fighting time to solve this case, she is fighting against the inept deputies on her force, and the negative reactions of her town to her being back. Enter Nick. He has been working this mob case for a very long time and has his whole career wrapped up in this dead man. He's non too keen on having to work with the local hick police chief to solve the murder, watching his dreams fall away if it can't be resolved. Until he sees her..... Hardie isn't too happy about the FBI invading her little town either, especially when he comes in spouting off about how important his career is etc. But in spite of their reluctance to be thrown together to solve a murder, they can't help but be attracted to each other. This mystery will turn their whole worlds upside down before it is through. And maybe in the midst of all this mayhem they will find the things that are truly important, home, family, love, and each other... This was a very well done story. Nick and Hardie are perfect for each other, even though in the beginning it seems they'll never work out. Their conflict between them was just right, caused by their different ambitions clashing over solving the mystery at hand. Hardie is strong, yet vulnerable at the same time. She is so determined to overcome her family history, which she felt the repercussions from her whole life, that she puts herself on the offensive immediately, to keep those who would from hurting her. Nick is consumed by his ambition to prove himself worthy, and that he is no longer that boy from the streets who would be a hoodlum, had someone not taken the time to help him get past that life and into a better one. The murder mystery is the focus of the entire story, with Nick and Hardie revolving around it. And it was so skillfully written, that this reviewer had no idea who the killer was, right up until the end. And normally this reviewer hates when the body counts in a mystery keep rising to continue the plot. But the additional murders in this story really did a

Ten years in the Army prepared Hardesty Arnaud's for gunfire and dead bodies, but it took a medal of honor to earn her way to becoming St. Martin's Police Chief. Unfortunately, the three patriarchs of the community seem to think they are in charge, able to ferret out anything, no matter how deeply buried. Hardesty knows they offered her the chief's job only because they could not turn her down. Now only two days on the job and Hardesty has a murder to solve. She quickly concludes that the body is a mob hit, and another missing man would have been the US Marshall assigned to protect him. The situation is potentially explosive.Growing up in the ghetto and rescued by a miracle, Nick has made becoming the first black FBI director his career goal. Proud of his city ways, the overwhelming heat and humidity of Louisiana plagues him, as does the spitfire who blocks his investigation. Nick has spent the last five years putting the Patrini family out of operation. The dead man had been their lawyer, knowing everything from where the bodies were buried to the account numbers of the offshore bank accounts. Without the lawyer's testimony, Nick's investigation comes to nothing and the sexy small town cop presents an unwanted complication.With nothing in common except a murder investigation, Hardesty and Nick clash in an exciting romantic thriller of the high caliber readers have come to expect from J.M. Jeffries. In SOUTHERN COMFORT opposites collide an entertaining romance as dangerous to the heart as it is the small town of St. Martin. The gritty policy procedural elements sharply contrast the growing relationship between Hardesty and Nick, resulting in a fast paced read impossible to put down. The richly created small town with its quirky citizens and old-fashioned values provides a powerful backdrop for intrigue and betrayal. SOUTHERN COMFORT comes highly recommended.

Army Lieutenant Hardesty Arnaud had seen action while in Kuwait. In fact, she returned as a war hero! After years of planning to leave her hometown (St. Martine, Louisiana), she found herself wanting nothing more than to return to it. She accepted the position of police chief. Yet she still felt that no matter what she managed to accomplish in life, the town would never see her as more than a mixed-race woman playing a game. She wanted the respect she had earned! When Lorenzo Capizi, a mob lawyer, ended up murdered in her bayou, Hardie knew the FBI would swarm into her territory expecting an illiterate hick, easily duped. They were in for a rude awakening! FBI Special Agent Nicholas Brannigan knew his case against the Patrinis family was in trouble. Nick's ambition was to be the first black director of the FBI. It would fade to dust if the Patrinis family got away. His only hope was to find a solid link between Capizi's murder and the mob family before word of Capizi's death got out. The St. Martine Police Department seemed to be stuck in the dark ages. It needed to be brought into the twenty-first century, badly. But it could not be done in time to help him. When Nick met the new police chief and found out she was extremely intelligent, he believed the situation pertaining to his case was in dire trouble. Instead, he learned the savvy chief put her military training to work for her. Even without up-to-date equipment, Hardie was more than his match! **** The author succeeded in showing that Hardie and Nick came from totally different back grounds, yet both had spent their lives trying to prove themselves to the world. The romance seemed to bloom naturally and the murder investigation went at a steady clip. No sudden jumps in plot or scenes. However, whoever did the editing of the book did NOT do a good job. At least three times I found a string of letters that made no sense. Turned out that the spaces between words were missing. This meant I had to reread and figure out what the actual words were. The editor should have easily caught them. Otherwise, this story was AWESOME! I highly recommend it. **** Reviewed by Detra Fitch.

The writing team of J. M. Jeffries mixes romance with an ingenuous blend of murder mystery in their latest novel, Southern Comfort. Hardesty Arnaud comes home from the military and assumes the role of Police Chief of St. Martine, Louisiana; she is a trust fund baby thanks to her family's wealth in the bayou. Nick Brannigan travels to St. Martine on assignment for the FBI; he is a man that was saved from the ghettos of Harlem. When these two stubborn souls meet all hell breaks loose in the small town of St. Martine. Add to the fact that St. Martine has not seen a murder in ten years, in addition to the fact that everyone in town knows everyone's business and you have a story of intriguing proportions. Other interesting and seemingly culpable characters add a vivaciousness that begs you to keep reading to get the answers to who, what, when, where and why?This duo did an excellent job of descriptive writing when graphically accounting for the landscapes of Louisiana's small towns and the fast city of New Orleans. While romance novels are one of boy gets girl and vice versa, Southern Comfort is a well-drawn, character driven illustration of mystery, small town America, family ties, interracial love and matters of the heart.

Picture it...you're standing in the middle of desert with close to a dozen men under your charge, two of them dead, bullets whizzing by your head and you don't have a clue as to what to do all you know is that you have to get your men out. You are Army Lieutenant Hardesty Arnaud, a strong black woman. You have had to prove yourself all your life and this is just one more test you are going to have to pass, because if you don't you'll have more than two dead men on your hands. Then again it may not matter because you could be dead yourself.Now let's fast-forward a bit. You are now the police chief of St. Martine, Louisiana, and once again you have two dead men on your hands. The only difference between the men this time and the ones in your previous career is that one is an ex-Mafia lawyer who is/was in the Witness Protection Program and the other is/was the U.S. Marshall who was protecting him. J. M. Jeffries's Southern Comfort is the classic whodunit with a couple of twist and turns that will keep you turning the pages trying to get the answers right along with Hardie and Special Agent Brannigan. Jeffries did a superb job of focusing on the development of the story, the characters, and the plot. She also did a great job at tying everything together in the end so the reader isn't left wondering how in the heck this or that happened.