Book Review: Dead Days of Summer

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Dead Days of Summer     Amazon US PB Amazon US HC Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada HC
Carolyn G. Hart
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Cozy   Amateur Sleuth   Woman Main Character
Series: Death on Demand # 17
Morrow, Apr 2006, $23.95, 288 pp.

On Broward’s Rock, an island off the coast of South Carolina, Max Darling begins a new case, but shockingly fails to return home. His worried spouse, Death on Demand bookstore owner Annie, frantically calls the police. The cops begin a search for the missing sleuth. When they locate his abandoned vehicle, they also find the corpse of a young woman nearby and the murder weapon in the trunk of Max’s car.

The media has a field day painting Max as a womanizing cheater who murdered his girlfriend, Vanessa Taylor. Not long afterward the police arrest Max charging him with homicide. Annie knows her spouse is faithful and no killer. She plans to prove both by going undercover with her only advisor being local mystery author Emma Clyde.

In the award winning Death on Demand series, DEAD DAYS OF SUMMER may be the best novel to date. The story line focuses on the efforts of Annie and friends trying to do the impossible to prove that Max is not a killer or an adulterer although the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of his being both. This fine amateur sleuth cozy with some police procedural elements is filled with heart as a stunned Annie believes to the max in her beloved spouse.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner