Mint Julep Murder (Death on Demand Mysteries, No. 9) [Mass Market Paperback]

Carolyn G. Hart (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1996

One of America's most beloved mystery writers, Carolyn G. Hart, the Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity Award-winning author, returns to her original mystery
series that features Annie Darling, owner of the Death on Demand Bookstore, and her husband, Max, with Mint Julep Murder.

Normally, Annie Laurence Darling would be eagerly awaiting her trip to Head Island, where this year's Dixie Book Festival is being held. But this year Annie has agreed to be the author liaison to five authors honored with the much-coveted Dixie Book Festival Medallions, and she fears she is going to have her hands full juggling murderous egos. What Annie doesn't count on is the untimely death of ambitious Mint Julep Press publisher Kenneth Hazlitt. Hazlitt arrives at the Festival peddling a proposal for Song of the South, a trashy roman  clef that details the indiscretions of some famous Southern authors at a writers' conference--writers who more than resemble the Dixie Festival Medallion winners. When Hazlitt drops dead after drinking a hit of bourbon from his private stock, the evidence points to Annie--the fatal glass is imprinted with her fingerprints. As more and more evidence points her way, Annie and Max must act fast to catch a wily killer...before the police throw the book at Annie!

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this paean to the cozy, Hart sets her lively amateur sleuth, bookstore owner Annie Darling (last seen in Southern Ghost), on a plot in which real mystery writers mix with fictional ones and most of the plentiful potshots are verbal. At the annual Dixie Book Festival, held on Hilton Head island, Annie has agreed to act as liaison for the five authors being presented with festival Medallions. The diverse honorees are a flame-haired author of Civil War novels; a handsome, smug writer of a bestselling male romance; a plump and unassuming woman who pens domestic murder mysteries; the cool author of a popular cozy series; and a loud, heavy-drinking redneck polemicist. Each one has reason to be distressed when the publisher of Mint Julep Press announces his plans to write a roman a clef about Southern writers. When the publisher dies at his own party, after downing some poisoned bourbon, Annie and her charges are all prime suspects. While her husband Max supplements her own reckless sleuthing, Annie must also cope with the determined attempts of her mother-in-law and two writing friends to snag publishers for their efforts. Casting probability to the winds, Hart wraps her light tale in a deliciously inviting setting and offers mystery readers a winsome treat.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

While ensconced on Broward's Rock Island, South Carolina, mystery bookstore owner and amateur sleuth Annie Darling serves as author liaison for the Dixie Book Festival on Hilton Head. Problems arise when a self-serving, small-time publisher promises to write a scandalous roman a clef featuring Annie's five charges?all quite famous. After the would-be writer dies of poisoning, all evidence points to Annie. When the beautiful, well-married, sexy, and witty Annie begins her quest for the truth, how can she lose? Ebullient tone, fascinating supporting characters, and attention to food and other details recommend this for most collections.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (September 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553572024
• ISBN-13: 978-0553572025
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 0.6 x 6.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #156,283 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Carolyn Hart writes the Death on Demand series set in a mystery bookstore on a South Carolina sea island and the Bailey Ruth Raeburn series featuring a lively redheaded ghost. Coming in 2012 from Berkley Prime Crime will be DEATH COMES SILENTLY, 22nd in the Death on Demand series, and WHAT THE CAT SAW, fist in the series featuring Nela Farley who has an uncanny sense of cats' thoughts.

She is also the author of several WWII novels, including ESCAPE FROM PARIS which is now available for the first time in its complete uncut version. Escape from Paris is the story of two sisters who defy the Gestapo to help British fliers avoid capture.

In Ghost at Work, Bailey Ruth returns to earth to help someone in trouble. She moves a body, investigates a murder, saves a marriage, prevents a suicide, and--in a fiery finale--rescues a child who knows too much. In Merry, Merry Ghost, Bailey Ruth protects a little boy from danger. In Ghost in Trouble, Bailey Ruth tries to corral a wilful woman determined to play hunt-the-killer. Coming in 2013 is HIJACKED GHOST which puts Bailey Ruth at risk of ever returning to Heaven.

Letter from Home, a WWII novel set on the home front, received the Agatha Award for Best Mystery of 2003. It was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize by the Oklahoma Center for Poets and Writers. Thirteen-year-old Gretchen Gilman is working for the small-town newspaper during the hot summer of 1944. Murder occurs on the street where she lives, forever changing her life and the lives of those involved.

Hart was one of 10 mystery authors featured at the National Book Festival on the Mall in Washington, DC, in 2003 for Letter from Home and again in 2007 for Set Sail for Murder, 7th in the Henrie O series. In Set Sail for Murder (new in paperback March 2008), Henrie O joins a troubled family on a Baltic cruise and death is an unwelcome passenger.

Hart has been nominated 9 times for the Agatha Award for Best Novel and has won 3 times. In 2007 she received the Lifetime Achievement Award at Malice Domestic. She will be the International Guest of Honor at Bloody Words in Toronto on June 6-8, 2008.

Hart is a native of Oklahoma City, a journalism graduate of the University of Oklahoma, and a former president of Sisters in Crime. She is also a member of Authors Guild, Mystery Writers of America, the International Association of Crime Writers, and American Crime Writers League.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What a fun romp!, May 2, 2007

By 

S. Schwartz "romonko" (alberta canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mint Julep Murder (Death on Demand Mysteries, No. 9) (Mass Market Paperback)

These books by Carolyn Hart are lots of fun. They make for nice light mystery reading. This book is set on Hilton Head Island, and Ms. Hart shows her love for this island in the writing of this book. There's lots of sleaze and glamour when Annie and her husband Max attend a Southern Book Fair on this island. If I have a complaint about these books, it is that each one always puts Annie or her nearest and dearest as prime suspects in the murder. Why can't they just try to solve a murder because it happens in their vicinity, not because one of them is suspected of killing someone? But the books are still fun, and I always enjoy the references to mystery writers and mystery books made throughout each book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Annie goes to the Dixie Book Festival, June 29, 2002

By 

Karen Potts (Lake Jackson, Texas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mint Julep Murder (Death on Demand Mysteries, No. 9) (Mass Market Paperback)

Annie Darling, proprietor of the bookstore Death on Demand, goes to the Dixie Book Festival, where many southern authors are being featured. She agrees to be an author liason for the five authors who are to receive special awards at the Festival. Publisher Kenneth Hazlitt, a book publisher, arrives and announces that he is writing a "tell-all" expose of the five authors who are being honored. When Hazlitt is poisoned, Annie reasons that it must be one of the five authors, but the local police chief uses circumstantial evidence to accuse Annie! She investigates each of the authors and finds that they all have something to hide. She also announces that she will now take over the book that Hazlitt had threatened to write, in order to flush out the murderer, much to her husband Max's dismay. This is another book in the charming Death on Demand series featuring Hart's delightful couple, Max and Annie Darling. Cozy readers will enjoy this book, as well as the others in the series.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A very fun read!, August 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Mint Julep Murder (Death on Demand Mysteries, No. 9) (Mass Market Paperback)

This is a very enjoyable book, as are all the the Death on Demand titles. As in A Little Class on Murder, Henny, Miss Dora and Laurel join forces (they've all written books and are looking for publishers!) to "help" Annie and Max solve the mystery and to try to drive Annie batty in the process. You'll enjoy it.