Death of the Party

Death on Demand #16

by Carolyn G. Hart

Britt Barlow is certain her media mogul brother-in-law Jeremiah Addison's fatal tumble a year ago was no accident -- especially since she herself discovered, and disposed of, the trip wire someone had strung across the stairs. Now she's bringing all who were in attendance that weekend back to Golden Silk -- Addison's luxurious secluded island estate -- and inviting two extra guests, Annie and Max Darling, to help uncover a killer. Annie Darling wouldn't miss this party for the world! And there certainly is no lack of suspects among the guests, each of whom had a substantial motive for doing in the insufferable tycoon. But the party turns deadly when a houseman mysteriously vanishes, along with the boats which are the only escape off Addison's island -- leaving the Darlings stranded on a floating rock in the middle of nowhere, too close to a solution for comfort, and stalked by a crafty murderer.

Genres: Mystery, Cozy Mystery, Fiction, Cozy, Mystery Thriller, Audiobook, Contemporary

352 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Also writing as Carolyn Hart.

An accomplished master of mystery with 46 published books, Carolyn Hart is the creator of the highly acclaimed Henrie O,Death on Demand, and Bailey Ruth Raeburn series. Her books have won multiple Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity Awards. Letter from Home (2003), her standalone mystery set in Oklahoma, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Her latest book is Dead by Midnight (William Morrow/HarperCollins, 2007). She is one of the founders of Sisters in Crime, an organization for women who write mysteries. She lives in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma."
New Books: Dead By Midnight Carolyn Hart


DEAD BY MIDNIGHT by Carolyn Hart On Sale March 29

The police say suicide. Annie Darling suspects murder. Max is unconvinced until Annie follows a trail behind the dead woman's house.

Annie unravels the mystery of a towel hidden at midnight in a gazebo, the interesting lack of fingerprints on a crystal mug, blood on a teenager's blue shirt, and the secret of a lovers' tryst. Max plunges deep into the woods to find incriminating evidence.

Annie sets the perfect trap for a merciless killer, but her cell phone rings and Death is on the line.

www.CarolynHart.com

And for cat lovers:

DEAD BY MIDNIGHT by Carolyn Hart

I love to have fun when writing a mystery. If I laugh, I think a reader will laugh. In the Death on Demand series, I especially enjoy writing about Annie Darling's ditzy mother-in-law, Laurel Roethke. Laurel is usually excited about a new interest, something that surprises and often confounds Annie.

In Dead by Midnight, Laurel creates Cat Truth Posters, which she wants Annie to hang in the bookstore. Annie thinks books should be the store's focus, but the posters enchant her.

Each poster features a cat's photograph with a caption. Here are three of the Cat Truth posters;

. . . a silky furred, mitted, and bicolored Ragdoll stretched out on a red silk cushion, looking as comfy as Eva Longoria in a Hanes ad: Go with the Flow.

A rectangular-muzzled, green-eyed, cholocolate colored cat appeared as brooding as a Gothic hero: Always Say Yes to Adventure.

. . . a thick-furred, piebald Siberian forest cat, its white front a brilliant contrast to a charcoal back and head. Its face appeared almost angelic: Always try a Smile First.

And yes, one of the posters points to a killer.

Fun for me and fun, I hope for readers

Reviews

[Readaholic Jenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm guessing that the author is a huge Agatha Christie fan. This book seems to be a modern day take on "And Then There Were None" (which is one of my favorite books and I've read more times than I can count) but it works. It's an enjoyable book. The ending is a surprise and I was disappointed that we never found out what happened to Harry Lyle but I'm betting Max got that one right.
Overall, this was an enjoyable mystery.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 Stars rounded up to 4 Stars.

[Anastasia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Death of the Party by Carolyn G. Hart is the 16th book in the Death on Demand Mystery series. Previous owner of the luxury island estate, Golden Silk, Jeremiah Addison was murdered and his murder deemed an accident. The previous guests at the time are lured back to the island along with Max and Annie Darling to discover the murderer. An interesting book where Max and Annie are alone in investigating without the input of the other usual characters. They make a terrific team and have a wonderful relationship, although this time seemed rather slow in picking up the clues. A nice cozy mystery.

[Kellene · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had this one pegged from the beginning, thus the 3 star rating. Second guessed myself a couple of times, but if Max and Annie had only listened when I kept yelling at them, the climax would have been much less of a nail-biter. I still enjoyed the book, and this continues to be one of my favorite series. Annie channeling her inner Laurel was so amusing for me. I continue to hope this series doesn't end any time soon, because I always look forward to the next installment.

[Mark O'brien · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story is totally implausible, but take off your thinking cap and enjoy the read. The plot is mostly good and the writing propels it along -- short sentences broken up occasionally by a long sentence, and good descriptions of most characters. The biggest downside is the cloying couple, Max and Annie Darling.

[Joy Gerbode · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is kind of a "clue" type mystery, with everyone gathered on one island and trying to figure out who committed the murder. Not too far from the end I finally figured it out ... and it was a total surprise when I realized who it had to be. A little bit more intense than I like my mysteries ... but it is very well written and kept my attention!

[Lyndon · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 Stars
Characters:
• Britt Barlow (28) (Deceased)-Owner of Heron House, now a B&B on the private sea island of Golden Silk. Cissy’s sister and Jeremiah’s sister-in-law. Murdered Jeremiah. She orchestrated the murder when Jeremiah was going to cast her out. She inherited a sum of money and Heron House from her sister Cissy and managed to pay off her gambling debt. When Everett Cranshaw tried to blackmail her, she devised an elaborate plan of inviting everyone who was present the day Jeremiah died to the island under the pretence of trying to find out who killed Jeremiah. She shot Everett dead. In the end, Annie foiled her perfect plan and after seeing no other way out, she turned the gun on herself.
• Loomis - Britt’s late in life love. Came to their rescue when he couldn’t raise Britt on the radio so he took a boat and came to Golden Silk island to check on her.
• Jeremiah Addison (Deceased) - Murdered. He tripped and fell to his death on a wire stretched across the top of the stone staircase. Head of Addison Media, comprising of newsprint, television station etc.
• Lorraine Addison - Jeremiah’s first wife and the love of his life. When she ran off with an artist invited to stay in Heron House, Jeremiah divorced her with no money. She went back to work as a Nurse and was left in a coma from a work injury. Jeremiah refused to pay for her care leaving it to his two sons to support their ailing mother.
• Cecilia Barlow Addison aka Cissy (Deceased) - Jeremiah’s second wife. Died of cancer. She was a beautiful model. Had a prenup agreement.

The Guests and. Staff:
• Jay (Jeremiah Thomas) Addison (32) - Jeremiah’s youngest son from his first marriage to Lorraine. Suffered abuse from Jeremiah. Resents Jeremiah for his abuse and also for refusing to pay for Lorraine’s medical treatment.
• Dana (29) - Jay’s wife. Former 4th Grade teacher, now a stay at home wife. Might resent Jeremiah because she had to go back to work in order to help pay for Cissy’s cancer treatment.
• Millicent McRae (52) - running for Governor. Invited by Britt with the promise of financial support for her campaign as Governor. State politician. Resents Jeremiah because there are rumours about her and her male secretaries. She is also supporting a bill that Jeremiah wants to struck down.
• Nicholas McRae (70) - Retired lawyer, Millicent’s husband
• Gerald Gamble (53) - Long time Addison Media employee. Former exec asst to Jeremiah. Now exec asst to Craig. Jeremiah suspects that he is gay and is attracted to his son Craig.
• Craig Addison (36) - Jeremiah’s eldest son. President of Addison Media. Resents Jeremiah because he cancelled a big cancer fundraising event and killed an important story about immigration he is working on.
• Isabel Addison (34) - Craig’s wife. Former news reporter, lives separately from Craig. She separated from Craig after Jeremiah’s death because she thought that Craig was the one who murdered Jeremiah.
• Kim Kennedy (23) - Intern turned news anchor within six months after charming Jeremiah. Ex news anchor. Had an affair with Jeremiah and was rumoured to be his next wife. The night before Jeremiah died, he told her that he found out she was telling people about being the next Ms. Addison. Jeremiah dismissed her and told her to leave the island. After he died, she was fired from Addison Media and now her money is running out.
• Everett Crenshaw (40)(Deceased) - Top Investigative Reported. Fired by Jeremiah. He had too many secrets about all the other guests. Despite Max’s best effort someone managed to get to Everett’s cabin and shot him to death.
• Luncinda Phillips (54) - Chief Housekeeper at Heron House. Employed for 12 years.
• Harry Lyle (49) - Caretaker, handyman. Employed for 9 years. Left the island mysteriously after the first night. He took the yacht, motorboat, ham radio, computer and locked trunks. Max suspects that he is a drug runner. Max also found out that he does not exist and living under a stolen identity.

The Investigative Team
• Max Darling - private investigator.
• Annie Laurance Darling - Max’ wife and owner of a bookstore.
• Max’s assistant

Britt’s Plan:
• Murdered Jeremiah because he was going to cast her out. She set up the wire across the staircase and caused him to fall and break his neck. She removed the wires early in the morning but didn’t know that she was witnessed by Everett.
• When Everett tried to blackmail her, she devised a plan where she invited guest from the day Jeremiah was killed back to Golden Silk and hired Max - a private investigator, to figure out who killed Jeremiah. She lured each of them by making various promises to entice them.
• Britt shot Everett to death. She convinced Everett to expose her true intent for bringing everyone together that weekend. When Annie saw the flashlight intermittently in the garden on the first night, that was Britt hiding the tape recorder. She actually recorder herself firing a gun.
• She convinced Craig to ask everyone to write down their account of weekend Jeremiah was killed. This gave her a reason to deliver a legal pad to each cabin. She took this opportunity to shoot Everett dead with a silencer.
• She made sure she was with Annie and Max when the recorder with the sound of gun firing goes off at around 1030 am. This way she has a solid alibi. When the trio reach Everett’s cabin, he was dead and Max assumed that someone shot Everett then ran away. Britt also deposited Jeremiah’s gun near Jay and Dana’s cabin. The last thread to her plan is to get rid of the tape recorder once everyone is gone and she has gotten away with a second murder.
• Her entire plan came apart when Annie went back to get her jacket from the golf cart and encountered the tape recorder and realized Britt was the murderer.
• Britt’s plan was if Everett died and everyone in the island believed he died bec he knew the identity of Jeremiah’s murderer and she had an air tight alibi during Everett’s death, then she would be free.

[RC Prentice · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had high hopes. A standard setting (limited # of characters marooned on an island), the twist (island’s owner intent on ferreting out the murderer from a gathering of the same people in the same place a year previously), and the apparent variety of possible perps, if running on similar if not identical motives, seemed to hold good promise. But the fingering of a different motive and an unsuspected perp who then vanishes, never to return again; the introduction of a deus ex machina who turns out to play not role at all; and the trite “confesses all” answer to the question make the narrative fall flat. The same scenes (people running off here and there; disappearing in and out of cabins; tramping paths that either lead them away from everybody else or result in unanticipated encounters) replayed again and again results in the narrative sagging in the middle. It never recovers. And if you think you suspect who the real perp is from early on, you’re probably right. Disappointing.

[Barb · Rating 2 out of 5]

Loved that the book has a bookstore called "Death on Demand" bookstore, and that there were "titled" coffee mugs that connected to the pictures on display in the store!

Definitely sounded like somewhere I'd like to hang out!

[Barb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Carolyn Hart's mysteries are fast reads and have the S.C. island setting I like. This one was especially sweet for not including Annie's annoying mother-in-law, Laurel, in the plot.

[Michele · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just when you think Carolyn Hart's Death on Demand series can't stay fresh and has no where new to go without seeming ridiculous....she pulls it off in fine form.

[Chanel Sharp · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the most interesting Carolyn G. Hart. First off this a retelling of Ten Little Indians by Agatha Christie, or as it was retitled as And Then There Were None.
First off mom is a bit of a sucker for And Then There Were None retelling; and this one was not exception. It was really good, but for it being part of the Death on Demand Series it was a bit of a let down.
First of off we are missing out on all the side characters that have almost become as well known as our main characters. No Henny or Laura, no one shows up, unlike in the other mysteries, even the one the took place of the island. I know this might have broken the belief of the book, that being they are truly stranded on this remote island, but seriously Laura has managed to 'photo bomb' every book wither it is plausible or not.
Secondly Annie does not solves the mystery. After years of solving them right before the 'unmasking' it could have easily been worked in and not ruined the book. It more ruined the Death on Demand Series having Annie not solve the mystery.
The book was great, especially as a And Then There Were None retelling, but felt a bit set apart from the other books in the series.
Can't wait to read more of the books in the series.

[Nancy Brady · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars actually...This mystery starts slowly, but builds in complexity as it goes. It is the sixteenth mystery in the series, but this was the first one for this reader. Perhaps that is why it seemed like a slow start as all the characters including the sleuths, Max and Annie Darling, needed introducing.

It's a locked room mystery (of sorts) taking place on an island (think: Masterpiece Mystery's rendition of And Then There Were None) in which there is no way off the island when a caretaker takes off on the only boat.

Britt, the owner of the island, hires Max (and Annie) to find out who killed Jeremiah Addison, her sister Cissy's husband . She wants to have all the people who were on the island when he died so that the sleuth will be able to discover the killer. A weekend to solve the murder, but in the process one of them is also murdered. Before the murderer strikes again, will Max figure out who killed Jeremiah as well as the newest victim?

Everyone suspects everyone else as there are plenty of reasons to dislike the deceased, making this an interesting mystery.

[Jane · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a more enjoyable installment than usual, because the storyline allowed for Annie and Max to interact with the people involved w/out coming off as bizarrely nosey (which is happening more and more in this series - I keep waiting for someone in one of these books to have a real reaction to a relative stranger barging into their personal spaces and asking very inappropriate questions).

We also were spared Annie's extended family, particularly Laurel and Rachel. Laurel was bad enough, adding Rachel to the mix may tip it over for me regarding continuing the series. Listen, if I wanted to read about dysfunctional family members that make me grind my teeth, I'd read about my OWN family, you know?

Big turn-off for me was that the author actually used the highly unfortunate and insulting terminology "sexual persuasion" when speaking of someone who was presumed to be something other than hetero. Nobody's persuading anyone to have a physical attraction to the same sex. I know the book was written some 16 years or so ago, but still . . . that rankles. A lot. I prefer the author keep to their previous game plan, which was to ignore diversity of any kind entirely in spinning her tales.

Would have been 3 stars, but removing a star because I feel insulted.

[Jessi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Carolyn Hart hearkens back to Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Soldiers" and sets this mystery on an island with people invited under false pretenses. This time, everyone there was connected to Jeremiah Addison who died a year ago. His death was not accidental but very few people know that. One of them is Britt Barlow, Jeremiah's sister-in-law. When he died, his wife inherited. She, at the time, was slowly dying of cancer and passed soon after. The island passed to Britt.
Now the killing has started again and the escape plan (a private yacht) was taken by a drug-smuggling caretaker.
The ending came out of left field which is odd since Hart is usually more fairly clued than that. There were way too many characters and it was hard to keep track of who was who.

[Tabbitha Rivera · Rating 3 out of 5]

Britt Barlow is determined to find the killer if her late brother in law Jeremiah Addison. Instead of going to the police she invited everyone who was there that night, the night of his "fall" back the the very place where he died. She hires detective Max Darling and his wife to help solve the case. No shocker that things begin to happen once everyone has arrived. Someone is a murderer and the Darlings will figure it out.

This is the book I picked up last November in Monterey at a little library there. It has an Agatha Christie vibe which I love. I had it figured out before the book ended which had me a little disappointed. I love being proven wrong.

☀️☀️☀️ (3/5 Stars)


#deathataparty #carolynhart #tabbyslibrary

[Sandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A death-on-demand mystery with Annie and Max Darling. The sister-in-law of a man who was murdered several years ago is sent a blackmail note - "I saw what you did." She invites everyone who was on the island when died, back to the island using varying reasons for each person. She also hires Max to find out who the real killer was. Annie and Max soon discover that pretty much everyone who is on the island could be the murderer. Then the houseman disappears with the yacht, boat and radio - so now those on the island are cut off from everyone else. I wasn't sure who the murderer was until near the end, so, I consider this to be a good mystery.

[Amanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

It seems I'm in the minority with this one. I don't know what it was, but this book just dragged on for me. It took me over a month to get 2/3s of the way thru.

I didn't feel invested in the wellbeing/innocence of any of the characters. The descriptions of just how much Max and Annie adored each other were random and distracting. I finally read the last few pages to see who the murderer was, just to get it over with.

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Different than most 'Death on Demand' novels in that virtually none of the action took place at the book store.
Several possible murderers were requested to return to the scene of a crime so that the culprit could be determined. All had a reason to commit murder, Annie and Max were there to figure out who actually did it.

[Janelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great example of an isolated closed circle mystery. Guest gather on a private island to discover the truth about the death of the family patriarch a year earlier. Hart makes good use of some classic tropes while also subverting other classic tropes.

[Cynthia Patterson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Old fashioned writing, good mystery

The mystery was well written but I found the old fashioned story telling a bit off putting. This book was enjoyable but a little bit tough to read.

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was another delightful addition to the Annie and Max series. Surprise ending; didn’t see it coming.

[Nathalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This reminded a bit of Agatha Christie's "And then there were none"---murder on an island where no one can escape but the similarities end there. I quite enjoyed it.

[LORI WALKER · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great characters and a quick read.

[Amy Phelps · Rating 3 out of 5]

At first I was very bored with it but it did pick up & get better. Not a real twist involved but definitely a mystery.

[Janet York · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although it was a good mystery, I found myself annoyed with the superfluous descriptions. The author must have memorized a thesaurus.

[Mossy · Rating 5 out of 5]

great character development...I have trouble with most series, as I never seem to read them in order....keeps it fresher, lol

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Elizabeth Sofia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Death of the Party was a re-read for me. This is number 16 in the series, and I don't know if I will continue on to number 17 or not. Everything just fell flat for me.

[Carol Stanley-Snow · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read.; Never saw the end coming!!!