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Connie Knight grew up in San Antonio, Texas with many childhood visits to her family in the DeWitt County area nearby. Her debut mystery novel, Cemetery Whites, is based on memories and stories shared, but all characters in the book are fictional and so are the events.
Knight began writing in junior high. College includes a B.A. in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University, then a year of journalism classes in San Antonio. Her writing career includes work as a newspaper reporter and magazine editor.
Her interest in Texas history is reflected in Cemetery Whites. Genealogy and gardening are other hobbies called upon in writing her mystery novel. She lives in Houston, Texas.
Reviewed by Lee Ashford for Readers' Favorite
Cemetery Whites by Connie Knight is a Caroline Hargrove Hamilton Mystery in which Hamilton relocates from urban Houston, Texas, to the small town of Yorktown, Texas in Dewitt County, where her family legacy has long been established. Enough time has passed since the death of her husband so that she is ready to move back among her numerous cousins, aunts, uncles, and other kin, and get on with her life. Yorktown is accurately described as one of those stereotypical small towns where pretty much everybody is related to everybody else. While in Yorktown, Caroline does exhaustive research into the Hargrove family ancestry, discovers a previously unknown branch of the family, helps solve a murder and an attempted murder, digs up (both literally and figuratively) and reveals hidden family “secrets”, and starts to fall in love again, with the local sheriff. Cemetery Whites is a stimulating and thought-provoking picture of the history and present-day life of a small Southern town, which could be true of any number of small Southern towns. The title refers to a variety of iris which often was used to mark grave sites, due to its hardiness in the hot, dry Texas climate.
In Cemetery Whites, Connie Knight has faithfully recorded a chapter of American history, and focused our attention on a fictional family’s personal history, which indubitably mirrors the reality of thousands of real families today. Her use of local vernacular is so authentic you can almost hear it being spoken as you read the words. Knight has fashioned characters of every stripe with uncanny accuracy, from the drunken bigot to the talented local country music band, to the waitress at the local diner. The story is fiction, but the setting is history. Cemetery Whites is a charming and captivating tale that not only entertains; it also illuminates. This is one book that everyone should read, for enjoyment as well as personal enlightenment.
