THE LADY IN RED, WITH PROMISES KEPT

A long-standing mystery remained rooted in the Mississippi Delta following a
discovery in 1969 by a backhoe operator digging a hole to install a septic system
in a homeowner's garden at Egypt Plantation. He had unearthed a metal coffin
with a glass window, through which the face of a beautiful, young antebellum
woman could be seen, with her fancy red dress earning her the sobriquet "Lady
in Red." Following failed attempts to discern her identity, her place of origin, or
any details of her burial, she was reburied in a pauper's grave in nearby Lexington.
A half-century later, following generations of the mystery remaining unsolved
with no valid answers offered up, a local fisherman proposes a new theory about
her identity and origin, to spur public interest in initiating the endeavor to
finally solve the mystery of the Lady in Red. The story creates a world in which a
woman is born and raised in the Mississippi Delta during the era when the region
was first settled by immigrants after they acquired the land from the Choctaw
Nation in 1830. Her short and exciting life, earning her admiration from the
local populace, is laid out in detail, and the circumstances surrounding her life
and death are described in a scenario about what could have occurred to result
in the discovery of her coffin being buried in a shallow grave next to the Yazoo
River on Egypt Plantation.
The book is largely based on my own life and the lives of my family and friends
in the Mississippi Delta. Having been raised next to the Yalobusha River in a
fisherman family, I simply drew from personal experiences when writing the book.
In fact, one could say that the story wrote itself, and I simply turned it into a book.