Mississippi Mud reveals the dark underbelly of Mississippi life. Two upstanding citizens of Biloxi, MS, Vincent and Margaret Sherry, were slain in their house in a typical hired assassin style. Vincent was a Circuit Court judge and Margaret was active in city politics. Their bodies were discovered by their best friend and Vince's law partner, Pete Halat. When their oldest daughter, Lynne Sposito, was contacted she immediately assumed that Margaret's attempts to clean up the Strip and oust the current mayor were the reason for the killings. Lynne was therefore wary that the Biloxi Police Department which was controlled by the mayor would be able to solve the murders. As it turned out, the Biloxi PD did mess up the initial investigation and it was only because of Lynne's relentless probing that the case continued to be investigated. She even hired a private investigator at a substantial cost. Eventually, charges were brought against a number of hardened criminals who had conducted a scam against gay men from prison. However, one of the people involved on the outside was not charged because of a lack of evidence.

This book goes into substantial, sometimes excessive, detail about the investigation and trial. But it was a fascinating read and ultimately satisfying. The details revealed about the scam and prison life in Angola, one of the worst prisons in the US, were especially interesting. According to the book the scam even reached into Canada with one MP being caught up. ( )

2971 Mississippi Mud: A True Story from a Corner of the Deep South, by Edward Humes (read 10 Apr 1997) This book is on the killing of a Mississippi judge and his wife in Biloxi, Miss., on Sept 14, 1987. The book is not very satisfying since the crime is not fully solved. Biloxi was a bad place, and there was a lot of evil there, and the people didn't seem to mind too much. ( )