Showing results by author "Carolyn Hart" in All Categories

Normally, Annie Laurence Darling would be eagerly awaiting her trip to this year's Dixie Book Festival. But this year Annie has agreed to be the author liaison to five authors honored with the Dixie Book Festival Medallions, and she fears she is going to have her hands full. What Annie doesn't count on is the untimely death of ambitious Mint Julep Press publisher Kenneth Hazlitt.

Invited to stage a Mystery Night for the annual antebellum house tour of the Historical Preservation Society of Chastain, South Carolina, Annie Laurance instead finds herself the leading lady in a flesh-and blood drama. The play's the thing when the curtain falls on grande dame Corinne Webster. While jeweled fingers point, accusing Annie of murder, the perpetrator lurks among the cast and the murder weapon is one of the props. Now it will take all of her sleuthing skills to discover the real killer.

Annie and Max Darling watch the Fourth of July festival explode not only with fun and fireworks, but with murder as well. A library board newcomer who also happens to be a retired Brigadier General maneuvers the theme of the festival, which is to benefit the library, into his own vision: "Points of Patriotism." His takeover attitude has alienated everyone, including Annie, who finds it difficult to ignore him - especially when he's shot dead before her eyes.

When Bailey Ruth Raeburn passed over into the great beyond, she was delighted to discover her sleuthing days would last an eternity. Joining Heaven's Department of Good Intentions, she uses her advantages as a ghost - sometimes you see her, sometimes you don't - to help those in need and ensure the wicked get their just deserts. However, on this latest mission, Bailey Ruth finds it more difficult than ever to keep up with her boss Wiggins' rules for good spirit deportment.

This second volume of a must-listen collection contains 15 bibliomysteries by best-selling and award-winning authors.

Christmas is a time for family and giving, and a wealthy woman in Adelaide, Oklahoma, is about to embrace both. Discovering that she has a young grandson, the dowager decides to change her will to leave the bulk of her fortune to the young boy, an alteration that stuns the rest of her family. But a scrooge of a determined heir makes sure she never signs the new document. When she is found dead, it's up to that irrepressible spirit Bailey Ruth to save Christmas.

This quartet of crime stories about deadly books, penned by award-winning contemporary mystery writers, includes The Little Men, What's in a Name?, The Book of the Lion, and From the Queen.

Annie and Max Darling are completely unprepared when the arrival of a mysterious young woman shocks their sea island and stirs up more than just gossip.It turns out that Iris, the beautiful stranger, is a former resident of Broward's Rock. Her arrival throws the normally happy town into a downward spiral that pits neighbor against neighbor.

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.

Max Darling hasn't been interested in crime since his brush with a seductive young woman put him in danger of losing his freedom. He even refuses to talk to a woman who calls for help and says she is afraid. The caller leaves word she's hidden something in the antebellum house Max and his wife, Annie, are restoring.

When wealthy, widowed art patron Virginia Neville officially announces her engagement to Jake O'Neill, her handsome, charming, and much younger fiance, 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.

In honor of Agatha Christie's 100th birthday, mystery bookstore owner Annie Laurance Darling plans a week-long celebration of mystery, treasure hunts, and Christie trivia. But the last thing she or her guests expect is that the scheduled fun and mayhem will include a real-life murder. The unexpected arrival of Neil Bledsoe, the most despised book critic in America, was sure to raise a few hackles. An advocate of hard-boiled detection and gory true crime, Bledsoe drops a bombshell on the devoted Christie assemblage....

Shell is the kind of woman wives hate - and most of them wish she would just disappear. But when she does, Annie can't help but feel like someone should be looking for her. The residents of Broward's Rock grow uneasy when a second islander mysteriously disappears. Annie and her husband, Max, soon find themselves following a twisted trail marked by blackmail, betrayal, and adultery.

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.

To celebrate an April Fool's Day appearance by the island's most famous mystery author, Death on Demand bookstore owner Annie Darling creates a unique promotion. Offering a free book to anyone who can solve a series of clues about popular whodunits, Annie and husband Max pass out their flyers all over town. But an April Fool prankster is distributing a counterfeit flyer, complete with not-so-vague accusations of murder.

After a busy morning dispatching emissaries from Heaven's Department of Good Intentions to those in need, Bailey Ruth Raeburn is feeling flush with success. So when an urgent call for help comes through from her old hometown, she can't resist taking on the mission herself. After all, what could go wrong? With the shouted warning of her boss, Wiggins - Irregular! Problematic! - ringing in her ears, she arrives to face a shocking scene: Professor Iris Gallagher leaning over the corpse of her colleague Matt Lambert, the murder weapon clutched in her hand.

Bailey Ruth loves to return to earth as an emissary from Heaven's Department of Good Intentions. Problem is, she's a bit of a loose cannon as far as ghosts go - forgetting to remain invisible, alarming earthly creatures - so she's far from the top of department head Wiggins's go-to list for assignments.

Annie's friend and fellow shop owner Ves Roundtree is a very wealthy woman. Her rich brother entrusted her with his estate, and upon her death, his fortune is to be divided. Several cash-strapped islanders are in line to collect life-changing inheritances. The problem is, Ves is very much alive. Ves hosts a dinner for the prospective beneficiaries and feels a chill in the air that has nothing to do with the wintry season. Not long after, she suffers a bad fall that is no accident. Everyone at the table has a motive, but not a shred of evidence is left behind.

Mystery bookstore owner Annie Laurance, and detective Max Darling are finally tying the knot, but a bizarre sequence of events threatens to unravel this blissful marriage before it begins. The ceremony is barely over when the phone rings and a woman on the other end of the line screams bloody murder! The newlyweds rush to the scene of the crime only to discover that Ingrid Jones, Annie's bookstore assistant, has vanished, leaving the body of a neighborhood Peeping Tom on her living room rug.

Mystery bookstore owner Annie Laurance didn't really want to go to her neighbor's Valentine Day masked ball - particularly not after the voluptuous brunette made a pass at Annie's husband, Max. So when her dizzy mother-in-law, Laurel, made a surprise visit to Broward's Rock Island, Annie thought it would be a perfect excuse to skip the party. She should have known better: True to form, Laurel accepted the invitation for all three of them. But the biggest surprise of all came at the party's end, when Annie found the amorous hostess in the gazebo - murdered.