Virginia Lanier
Virginia Lanier was an American author born on October 28, 1930, in Madison County, Florida. Raised in Clearwater after being adopted at a young age, she held various jobs throughout her life, including roles as a bookkeeper and manager. After marrying Robert W. "Hoss" Lanier, she raised five sons while traveling across the country due to her husband's military and civil service careers. The family eventually settled in Echols County, Georgia, near the Okefenokee Swamp.
In the early 1990s, after becoming a diabetic and facing health challenges, Lanier was encouraged to pursue writing. She authored her first novel, *Death in Bloodhound Red*, which introduced a strong female detective and was well-received, garnering nominations for prestigious awards and winning the Anthony Award for Best First Novel. Following her debut, she published several sequels that showcased her development as a writer. Despite personal hardships, including her husband's illness and eventual death, Lanier continued to write until her passing on October 27, 2003, just before her seventy-third birthday, having completed the final book in her series.
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Virginia Lanier
Writer
- Born: October 28, 1930
- Birthplace: Madison County, Florida
- Died: October 27, 2003
- Place of death: Fargo, Georgia
Biography
Virginia Lanier was born on October 28, 1930, in Madison County, Florida, the daughter of Ira W. and Mary Holt Rudd. She was adopted at the age of two and raised in Clearwater, Florida. Throughout her life, Lanier worked at a number of jobs, including bookkeeper, laundry worker, credit manager for a local branch of a national clothing store, tobacco handler, and manager of a catalog store for a national chain.
She married and had two sons and later married her second husband, Robert W. “Hoss” Lanier, who had three sons from a previous marriage. She raised all five boys as the family traveled across the country, following her husbands’ careers in the U.S. Navy and in civil service. When Robert Lanier retired in 1974, the family settled in Echols County in southeast Georgia at the edge of the gator-infested Okefenokee Swamp. The Laniers lived in a mobile home, with a homemade bar covered with pennies in which Hoss’s name was spelled out in nickels, on four acres with a catfish pond. Theirs was the only home on a twenty-eight-mile-long road, an hour’s drive from Valdosta, Georgia.
In 1978, Lanier, a diabetic, contracted Crohn’s disease and was placed on Social Security disability. Unable to work, she became an avid reader. In the early 1990’s, she read a book and remarked to her husband that the novel was so poorly written that even she, an uneducated woman with no writing experience, could do better. Her husband dared her to try and bought her a typewriter, paper, dictionary, desk, and chair.
Lanier rose to the challenge and banged out an 850-page mystery in less than six months. Her debut novel, Death in Bloodhound Red, featured Jo Beth Sidden, a feisty, feminist, thirty-something amateur detective with a vengeful former husband, Bubba, who raises and trains bloodhounds to aid law enforcement in search-and-rescue operations. Replete with carefully researched bloodhound lore, colorful characters, and good-old-boy humor and chugging along at a breakneck pace, the novel found a receptive audience. Death in Bloodhound Red was also critically well received; it was nominated for Agatha and Macavity awards and won the Anthony Award as Best First Novel.
HarperCollins took notice of her success and published the next four entries in the series, The House on Bloodhound Lane, A Brace of Bloodhounds, Blind Bloodhound Justice, and Ten Little Bloodhounds. These novels demonstrated Lanier’s increasing mastery of plot and pacing and featured a cast of colorful characters, including the blind bloodhound Bobby Lee, who can track like no other dog; deaf dog trainer Wayne; former prostitute Jasmine; Jo Beth’s friend, Sheriff Cribbs; and her malevolent former husband, Bubba.
In the late 1990’s, Lanier had a tumor removed from her spine, necessitating a long recovery that interrupted her writing. Shortly afterward, her husband suffered a spinal aneurysm that left him paralyzed from the chest down, and the Laniers were in and out of the hospital during most of 2000 and 2001. Robert Lanier died of Wegener’s disease, a rare ailment that inflames the blood vessels, in late 2001. Virginia Lanier died not long after, one day short of her seventy-third birthday, on October 27, 2003, soon after she finished the last novel in her popular mystery series, the aptly named A Bloodhound to Die For.