"Dead by Midnight" by Carolyn Hart: Book Review

"Dead by Midnight" by Carolyn Hart
William Morrow, 282 pp., $24.99
Reviewed by David Marshall James

Annie Darling-- proprietor of Death on Demand mystery bookstore on the boardwalk at Broward's Rock, South Carolina (an island coastal resort)-- does a good bit of business off "hammock reading."

This twenty-first entry in Carolyn Hart's "Death on Demand" mystery series makes for good hammock reading.

That is, of course, after you've finished the new biography of Millard Fillmore (for real).

The action here centers on a three-partner law firm that's been suffering mightily since the senior partner (a widower with three young-adult children) succumbed to the wiles of his flashy, arriviste, new female partner, making her a partner in every sense of the word.

It's "wicked stepmother" time not just for the kids, but for the third partner as well as the firm's receptionist, both of whom have fallen out of favor with the newly crowned queen.

You just know someone's going down in this nasty scenario. Actually, it's more than one of 'em.

The death of the first to go is ruled a suicide, but Annie and her pal Henny Brawley aren't buying it, so they start nosing around for themselves, with begrudging permission from the island's chief of police, Billy Cameron.

You would think by now he would trust Annie's instincts. Well, he sort of does. Probably more than most COP's would, even given her track record for solving murders.

Naturally, Annie's husband, Max, is easily encouraged to join in the investigation, via his Confidential Commissions firm, where business is slow enough that the secretary, Barb, can whip out a banana or chocolate cream pie in the office kitchen every day, proving her weight in meringue, which is rather something.

Sometimes, Max would rather be out chopping waves in his speedboat, or soaking up rays on the beach, or even whipping up a pie himself, at home. Who can blame him? He's rich and handsome and doesn't have to worry about the funds to back Barb's next paycheck. His mother, Laurel, happens to be a few lady fingers short of a Charlotte Russe, but after a charming fashion.

Annie, however, is a worrier and a workaholic. The author creates a most appealing milieu within the bookshop, which includes a gourmet coffee bar, with most generous name-dropping of mystery authors and titles, present and past.

Good thing that Annie's a gal on the go-- all those caramel lattes at the coffee bar add up, especially alongside Barb's pies, Max's pies, and the fried-flounder sandwiches at Parotti's Grill (if Annie's not going heavy on the tartar sauce, it's the Thousand Island dressing-- a lass after m'own heart).

The regular characters are as fetching as ever in this newest "Death on Demand," and who wouldn't want to read about a beach setting, especially when you can't make it to a real one?

The plot-- a well-designed whodunit-- will keep you in that hammock for hours. Sounds like a plan.

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