Review

When Hayley Hurst shows up at Confidential Commissions seeking assistance in locating her stepmother, Max Darling turns the teenager away; the woman’s only been gone for a few days, and as Max later tells his wife Annie, “if ever a woman can take care of herself, it’s Shell Hurst.” Annie doesn’t see the harm in making a few phone calls, though, and before they know it, the duo’s launched a full-fledged investigation regarding the woman’s whereabouts.

What became of Shell Hurst after she left the country club’s Fourth of July dance? If any of the club members know, they’re not talking. Was the woman’s departure from Broward’s Rock voluntary, or was she the victim of foul play? One thing’s for sure – with the Darlings on the case, the question won’t remain unanswered for long.

I read my first of Carolyn Hart’s Death on Demand Bookstore Mysteries over 20 years ago. I fell in love with the setting (Annie’s bookstore and the town of Broward’s Rock both), the characters, and Hart’s Agatha-Christie-like plots, and read the series religiously for the first dozen or so installments. But then something changed. I’m not sure if it was my taste, or Carolyn Hart’s writing, or some combination thereof, but I just lost interest in the adventures of Annie and Max Darling. I actually hadn’t even realized Hart was still writing Death on Demand Bookstore Mysteries until book #23, Dead, White, and Blue, showed up at my door. And to be honest, I kind of wish I’d remained blissfully ignorant.

Hart’s latest reads like a cross between an old-fashioned dime-store pulp novel and an episode of Dynasty or Knot’s Landing. The prose is overwrought. The characters are cartoonish, their dialogue is hokey and doesn’t ring true (when’s the last time you heard a teenager call music “swell”?), their actions feel forced, and their motivations are unearned. The central mystery may well be modeled after one of Christie’s manor-house-style mysteries, as it certainly features lots of entitled, self-important rich people whose lives are hopelessly entangled (too many, if you ask me – it’s nearly impossible to keep track of who’s whom), but Hart fails to make you feel strongly about any of them, making it difficult to get invested in the investigation or its outcome. There’s very little tension and virtually no action, resulting in a pace that’s positively glacial. The book’s big denouement is convoluted, silly, and anti-climactic. And if I never again read a sentence in which either Max or Annie admires the other’s shape, it’ll be too soon.

If you’re a die-hard Carolyn Hart fan, you’ll likely enjoy Dead, White, and Blue. As for me, though, my love affair with the Death on Demand Bookstore Mysteries is officially over.

Reviewed by Kat