Southern Ghost (Death on Demand Series #8)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

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.)

Barbara Duree

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 ".