When I lived in Denver I worked at Tattered Cover, probably one of my favorite bookstores of all time. I got a chance to meet an author I had recently started reading. Her name was Carolyn Hart. At the time I worked there she had recently started her Death on Demand series. It soon became one of my favorite mystery series. It is an ever growing series so I thought I'd break them into manageable chunks.
Death on Demand: Annie Laurence has moved to Broward's Rock Island, South Carolina and has taken over her late Uncle's bookstore,
Death on Demand. She has spent her inheritance making this one of the top bookstores in the country for mysteries. One of the things that make this series so enjoyable is catching the references to other real life bookstores and authors.
For a small town their are certainly lots of mystery authors around. Emma Clyde is introduced here and will feature in many more mysteries. She is their Queen of Mysteries and the new Agatha Christie as far as popularity goes. Henny Brawley is Annie's best customer.
The two major detectives are Annie Laurence who is hot tempered, hard working, and no nonsense. My favorite though has to be Max Darling who was described as Joe Hardy all grown up and sexy as hell. He is rich, good looking, and as laid back as you can get. Annie flees New York because she refuses to fall in love with him. Of course you can guess how that ends.
Elliot Morgan decides to write the tell all book on the Broward's Rock mystery writers. Of course that will mean he is the victim. When he is killed with all the writers at Annie's store the main suspect becomes Annie who had fought with him quite publicly. Annie and Max go into competition to try and find out who the real culprit is before Annie gets arrested. It is a bright, breezy, and fun introduction to the series. It introduces all the common elements you will see in later books including the painting competition. Five watercolors with a common theme are hung each month in the store. Hart describes the paintings and if you are good and don't peek to the end you will have the chance to try and guess the mysteries and what they have in common. Hart name drops mystery authors like crazy. It is such fun.
Design for Murder: Annie gets invited over to the town of Chastain to run a murder mystery night at the local Historical Society's house tour. Corrine Webster is probably one of the most disliked people in Chastain but she is genuine old country so her word is law. She is rich, vain, meddlesome, and of course her house is where the mystery nights will take place. There is something new however in the fact that someone is out to tarnish the woman's reputation and doesn't mind using Annie as a scapegoat. What wasn't expected was Corrine's death.
Annie just can't seem to stop her habit of having public rows with people who end up dead and of course she becomes suspect number one again. This time she and Max are engaged and working together to try and clear her name.
Annie needs to split her time between the Mystery Night which has been decreed to continue and trying to keep from being arrested for murder by finding the real killer. What makes this book interesting is the atmosphere. I encountered this kind of small town pride and prejudice where outsiders need not apply attitude in real life. Hart beautifully paints the frustrations of people who encounter this kind of treatment of I don't care if you have lived here 25 years you will always be an outsider. I had to admit though that the person responsible did surprise me. We also get to meet another character we will be seeing frequently Miss Dora. She is quite a formidable senior citizen.
Something Wicked: As we had learned in previous books Annie majored in theater and had tried her hand as an actress in New York where she met Max Darling who dabbled in theater as a producer of Off-Broadway. Broward's Rock has a thriving amateur theater group and Annie and her Max have parts in the production of
Arsenic and Old Lace. Unfortunately the production is stuck with an ex-surfer star named Shane Petree who is a total disaster. Unfortunately Shane's rich wife Sheridan is financing the play so they are stuck with the total jerk.
When Shane ends up dead the list of suspects should be a mile long. He was having an affair with T.K.'s wife and teenaged daughter. Sam is a washed up director who desperately wants to reignite his career. Eugene wants his role back as Teddy but does he want it back enough to kill? This time the chief suspect turns out to be Max courtesy of the blow-hard Circuit Solicitor Bryce Posey. We will see this slimy politician in more books.
I enjoyed this book tremendously. It helps that I have a B.A. in theater and had worked in small town productions for years and loved every minute of it. I have also worked with enough "professionals" to recognize the types some of these characters were based on.
Honeymoon with Murder: Annie and Max finally get married but not without a lot of "help" from the probably most fun space cadet character ever written the five times married Laurel Rothke mother to the delightful Max. I can't tell you how much I love this character. A free spirited woman who is into all sorts of New Age things. She is from my 60s era and I've known so many people like her. I will admit to having a bit of the free spirited New Age in myself.
The small wedding of her dreams turns out to be a more lavish affair then she wanted with more New Age and Universal Love concepts than she ever wanted but at least Annie now has her Max. He even has a job although one he made up at Confidential Commissions where he "helps" people but not as a lawyer or private detective since getting those credentials would be too much work. The wedding night takes a turn for the worse when a phone call from Ingrid Jones, Annie's Assistant, sends them running over to her place to find Ingrid missing and a very dead body laying in her living room.
The political hack Bryce Posey takes over the case and decides that Ingrid is of course guilty and has run away. He refuses to look for Ingrid and the denizens of Broward's Rock take it on themselves to do so instead. You learn a lot more about Henny Brawley in this book and she becomes an even more fascinating character as the series goes on.
These books have a lot going for them. You have the fun of the name dropping of detectives and their writers. You have the five pictures contest which isn't as easy as you think it will be. You have characters that grow as you learn more about them. Most of all you have a delightful woman, Carolyn Hart, who loves mysteries and their fans. I really enjoyed meeting her and I'll always treasure my signed copy of Mint Julep Murder. These mysteries are more in the cozy category and I was thrilled to share them with my late Mom who liked her mysteries on the gentile side. If you are looking for well written stories and a celebration of mysteries as a whole this is the series to get. I'll review more of them as we go along.
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