When wealthy, widowed art patron Virginia Neville officially announces her engagement to Jake O'Neill -- her handsome, charming, and much younger fianc -- at a gala gallery opening, not all the gathered friends and stepfamily are pleased. And before the last champagne bubble pops, murder disrupts the grand celebration. Bookstore owner Annie Darling has a vested interest in the investigation, and she's determined to untangle an unholy marriage of jealousy, blackmail, and malicious mischief, even if it means having to cross swords with hubby Max and cross paths with a cruelly clever stalker.
Bailey Ruth and Wiggins will delight readers who prefer their mysteries light and seasoned with wit and the supernatural.
--Boston Globe
This could be Hart's best series yet.
--Booklist
Spectral sleuth Bailey Ruth Raeburn from Heaven's Department of Good Intentions is on the case again in Carolyn Hart's delectable Ghost in Trouble--the third in the multiple Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity Award-winning author's acclaimed mystery series sprinkled with wonderful wit and more than a touch of the paranormal. The follow up to the acclaimed Ghost at Work (named one of Publishers Weekly's Top Books of 2008) and Merry, Merry Ghost, Hart's Ghost in Trouble brings Bailey Ruth back down to Earth to save a human in dire trouble...who just happens to be the phantom problem solver's mortal enemy.
Bailey Ruth Raeburn has always been great at solving mysteries. Why should a little thing like her death change anything? In fact, being dead gives her more of an opportunity to be on top of events. Bailey Ruth is delighted that her unique position as a ghost makes it possible for her to lend a helping hand, sometimes seen and sometimes not. And if anybody needs a little help, it's Kathleen, the pastor's wife. There's a dead man on her porch, and once the body is discovered, the pastor is sure to become a suspect.
Uncharitable people might call it meddling, but Bailey Ruth knows Kathleen needs her help As a member of Heaven's Department of Good Intentions, Bailey Ruth goes back to earth to extricate Kathleen from a dire situation. If Bailey Ruth has to bend a few rules to help Kathleen save her family, Wiggins, her fussbudget supervisor, will make sure it all turns out right in the end.
Annie Darling, owner of the Death on Demand mystery bookstore, is understandably upset. It isn't like her p.i. husband Max to abruptly disappear--and homicide is definitely not his style. But when his car is found abandoned on a remote road with a brutally slain, once-beautiful young woman nearby and the murder weapon stashed in the trunk, Annie's worst fears seem justified.
The police have Max all but tried and convicted--except for Chief Billy Cameron, whose unshakable belief in his friend's innocence prompts his removal from the case. And as a media circus descends on tiny Broward's Rock, Annie will have to place her own life in jeopardy to clear her husband's name. But time is running out--and she has only one slim chance to unmask a killer who just may have committed the perfect crime.
Ex-reporter Henrietta Henrie 0 O'Dwyer Collins joins a wedding party in glorious Bermuda -- only to discover that death is an uninvited guest.
Warm turquoise waters and balmy ocean breezes do little to ease Henrie O's discomfort at having to attend the wedding of her ex-son-in-law Lloyd to Connor Bailey, a beautiful widow with a dark past and a knack for attracting men. Recently recovered from pneumonia, the retired Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist joins her grandchildren at an elegant oceanfront hotel -- and is soon embroiled in a deadly puzzle that touches everyone connected with the impending union.
If I were teaching a course on how to write a mystery, I would make Carolyn Hart required reading.
--Los Angeles Times
One of the most popular practitioners of the traditional mystery (Cleveland Plain Dealer), Carolyn Hart is unstoppable--and her Death on Demand mystery series seems to get better with every book. The proof? Dead by Midnight, once again featuring bookstore owner and sometime sleuth Annie Darling and her adoring p.i. husband Max. Their search for the truth behind a shocking suicide that rocks the idyllic (if somewhat homicide-prone) island of Broward's Rock will make any mystery reader an instant fan--joining an ever-growing multitude that includes bestselling thriller author Robert Crais, who declares, I'm a sucker for Carolyn Hart's Annie and Max series.