Sugarplum Dead (Death on Demand, #12) (2024)

It's getting to look a lot like Christmas on the sea island of Broward's Rock, South Carolina. At the popular Death on Demand mystery bookstore, owner Annie Darling's energetic Yuletide preparations have to be put on hold thanks to several rather inconvenient distractions including a slew of family woes ... and murder.

Annie's mother-in-law Laurel, not normally the straightest of arrows anyway, has taken to chatting up ghosts in the local graveyard. Across the island in a spacious, spooky mansion, ancient onetime movie star Marguerite Dumaney Ladson has called together all her living kin and their multitude of exes for her gala combination Xmas/birthday bash. Among the honored guests are two that Annie could well do without: her errant father, whom she hasn't seen in twenty five years, and Dr. Emory Swanson, Laurel's guide down "The Golden Path."

Like Laurel, wealthy old Rita Dumaney Ladson has fallen for Swanson's new-age-pseudo-occult gobbledygook. The question is: how are the gathered relatives going to react to the grande dame's announcement that she's leaving her fortune to the charismatic charlatan's Evermore Foundation? Not well, apparently,since a murder follows right on the heels of Rita's shocking revelation. And the finger of suspicion seems to be pointing straight at Annie Darling's recently arrived deadbeat dad.

Annie can feel no loyalty toward the father she's never really known, but she doesn't believe for a minute he's guilty. And when a second murder puts her conflicted emotions into an even more chaotic tailspin, Annie realizes that she will need all the help her easy-going PI. husband Max can offer to solve a related pair of homicides. Because, in this season of giving, fate is giving her more major headaches and a killer is giving her more corpses than even the normally unflappable Annie Darling may be able to handle.

Also writing as Carolyn Hart.

An accomplished master of mystery with 46 published books, Carolyn Hart is the creator of the highly acclaimed Henrie O,Death on Demand, and Bailey Ruth Raeburn series. Her books have won multiple Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity Awards. Letter from Home (2003), her standalone mystery set in Oklahoma, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Her latest book is Dead by Midnight (William Morrow/HarperCollins, 2007). She is one of the founders of Sisters in Crime, an organization for women who write mysteries. She lives in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma."
New Books: Dead By Midnight Carolyn Hart

DEAD BY MIDNIGHT by Carolyn Hart On Sale March 29

The police say suicide. Annie Darling suspects murder. Max is unconvinced until Annie follows a trail behind the dead woman's house.

Annie unravels the mystery of a towel hidden at midnight in a gazebo, the interesting lack of fingerprints on a crystal mug, blood on a teenager's blue shirt, and the secret of a lovers' tryst. Max plunges deep into the woods to find incriminating evidence.

Annie sets the perfect trap for a merciless killer, but her cell phone rings and Death is on the line.

www.CarolynHart.com

And for cat lovers:

DEAD BY MIDNIGHT by Carolyn Hart

I love to have fun when writing a mystery. If I laugh, I think a reader will laugh. In the Death on Demand series, I especially enjoy writing about Annie Darling's ditzy mother-in-law, Laurel Roethke. Laurel is usually excited about a new interest, something that surprises and often confounds Annie.

In Dead by Midnight, Laurel creates Cat Truth Posters, which she wants Annie to hang in the bookstore. Annie thinks books should be the store's focus, but the posters enchant her.

Each poster features a cat's photograph with a caption. Here are three of the Cat Truth posters;

. . . a silky furred, mitted, and bicolored Ragdoll stretched out on a red silk cushion, looking as comfy as Eva Longoria in a Hanes ad: Go with the Flow.

A rectangular-muzzled, green-eyed, cholocolate colored cat appeared as brooding as a Gothic hero: Always Say Yes to Adventure.

. . . a thick-furred, piebald Siberian forest cat, its white front a brilliant contrast to a charcoal back and head. Its face appeared almost angelic: Always try a Smile First.

And yes, one of the posters points to a killer.

Fun for me and fun, I hope for readers