Southern Ghost (Death on Demand Series #8)

by Carolyn G. Hart

Overview

Annie Darling, owner of the Death on Demand bookstore, is shocked to hear talk about her husband, Max, and a beautiful blonde. By the time she’s faced down a hostile police chief and bailed Max out of the Chastain, South Carolina, jail, the lady has vanished and Max is the prime suspect in an unspecified crime. The baffling, bloodstained trail leads straight to the doorstep of Tarrant House, home of the venerable Southern family with a violent history dating back to the Revolution—and ghosts of a far more recent vintage.
 
Annie and Max find that the dignified façade of Tarrant House hides a hotbed of deadly passions as the family turns on itself in a mayhem of murderous motives and angry accusations. But in the end Annie must summon all her sleuthing skills to stop a desperate killer who is ready to strike again to keep the secrets that haunt the Tarrants from the light of day. . . .

Praise for Southern Ghost 

“Tantalizing . . . keep[s] the reader guessing all the way.”—The Denver Post

“Pleasing . . . chillingly effective…remarkably satisfying.”—Publishers Weekly

“[Annie and Max] make one of the most attractive pairs of sleuths since Dashiell Hammett’s Nick and Nora Charles.”—Chicago Sun-Times

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780553562750
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/01/1993
Series:	Death on Demand Series , #8
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	4.20(w) x 6.80(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

An accomplished master of mystery, Carolyn Hart is the New York Times bestselling author of more than fifty-five novels of mystery and suspense including the Bailey Ruth Ghost Novels and the Death on Demand Mysteries. Her books have won multiple Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity awards. She has also been honored with the Amelia Award for significant contributions to the traditional mystery from Malice Domestic and was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America. One of the founders of Sisters in Crime, Hart lives in Oklahoma City, where she enjoys mysteries, walking in the park, and cats. She and her husband, Phil, serve as staff—cat owners will understand—to brother and sister brown tabbies.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1.
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Southern Ghost"
by .
Copyright © 1993 Carolyn Hart.
Excerpted by permission of Random House Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Editorial Reviews

Hart offers a pleasing eighth entry in her multiple award-winning (Agatha, Anthony and Macavity) cozy/Southern gothic series starring mystery bookstore owner Annie Darling and her sleuth husband, Max. In 1970, the son of South Carolina's prominent Tarrant family takes his life in the aftermath of antiwar protests; his father, in shock, also dies. His mother soon dies of grief and a baby, a cousin, drowns. Dark deeds come to light 20 years later, when a young woman eager to to find her true parents reopens old wounds, aided by an elderly aunt who brings in outside help, namely Max and Annie. While Hart sidetracks us with an excess of cat lore, the tiresome supernatural musings of Max's mother and such genre stereotypes as the crusty, all-knowing matriarch and a drunken daughter, in the end she whips all into a remarkably satisfying tale. The segues to the dark night 22 years ago are chillingly effective and tantalizingly brief. A seasoned mystery maker, Hart ( The Christie Caper ), who is current president of Sisters in Crime, earns the devotion of her following. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

According to the news story published in the "Chastain" (South Carolina) "Courier" at the time, leading citizen Judge Augustus Tarrant suffered a fatal heart attack on May 9, 1970, after learning of the accidental shooting death of his 21-year-old son, Ross. What has prompted young Courtney Kimball to hire Max Darling to investigate this family tragedy 22 years later? And why does Courtney subsequently disappear? Old sins cast long shadows and rouse avenging ghosts in Tarrant House as Max and his mystery aficionado wife, Annie (who owns a bookstore called Death on Demand), search for an answer to both questions. Hart's southern-gothic mystery offers a wealth of suspects (forced to one-room confrontation after murder has been established), a generous scattering of literary allusions and peripheral ghost stories, and a chain of intriguing flashbacks that will leave most readers puzzled to the end. All in all, a worthy successor to "The Christie Caper ".

Barbara Duree