April Fool Dead
A Death on Demand Mystery by Carolyn Hart
Review: April Fool Dead is the 13th mystery in Carolyn Hart's Death on Demand series with mystery bookstore owner Annie Darling.
New readers of this series will no doubt be delighted with this cozy. Annie Darling has a dream job of running what appears to be a wildly profitable mystery bookstore on a resort island off the coast of South Carolina and, in contrast to the vast majority of bookstore owners, has time aplenty to get involved in the affairs of a cast of characters that seem to be an updated and transplanted version of the inhabitants of St. Mary's Mead. But long time readers of the series will be disappointed. April Fool Dead is a safe, albeit rather dull, extension of a series that once was vibrant and exciting.
Hart typically includes mystery-themed puzzles in her books, and is no exception. It's always a bit of fun realizing that, no matter how many mystery books you've read, you'll still not likely to come up with all the right answers!
April Fool Dead is a fine mystery book for a rainy afternoon, but it's definitely not among the best of the series.
Review Copyright © 2002 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
Selected reviews of other mysteries by this author …
Death Walked In
William Morrow (Hardcover), March 2008
ISBN-13: 9780060724054; ISBN-10: 0060724056
Location(s) referenced in April Fool Dead: South Carolina
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April Fool Dead by Carolyn Hart
Publisher: William Morrow
Format: Hardcover
ISBN-10: 0-380-97774-5
ISBN-13: 978-0-380-97774-1
Publication Date: March 2002
List Price: $23.95
Synopsis (from the publisher): Death is no joke on Broward's Rock, though reading about deadly doings remains as popular a pastime as ever for citizens of the stormy South Carolina sea island. Now, with spring newly sprung, Annie Darling has conceived of an ingenious promotional scheme to draw customers into her Death on Demand bookshop for the upcoming in-store appearance by world-class mystery author Emma Clyde. Offering a free book to anyone who can solve a series of clues about popular whodunits, Annie and hubby 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.
Suddenly the Darling name is mud, thanks to the vicious slanders of an unknown counterfeiter. And Annie knows that she herself is going to have to do the bulk of the sleuthing --with only the intermittently effective aid of Max-- if she doesn't want this particular April Fool's to last well past Memorial Day.
Then, just as things couldn't seem to get any worse, they do. In the wink of a bloodshot eye, Annie's hunt for a malicious trickster has become a desperate search for a killer. Because now more than her reputation is at stake. If she can't rid her idyllic isle of a secret slayer, the malefactor's next murderous "joke" may be on her!