A Little Class on Murder (Death on Demand Mysteries, No. 5) [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Carolyn G. Hart (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1991

When mystery bookstore owner Annie Laurance is invited to teach "The Three Great Ladies of the Mystery" class at Chastain Community College, the sometime sleuth discovers that all is not strictly academic in Chastain's hallowed halls of learning. And when a shocking scandal in the school newspaper erupts in a suicide and two violent deaths, Professor Laurance enlists the talents of her new hubby, private eye Max Darling, and dons her thinking cap to probe intrigue and vengeance among Chastain's faculty.

A Dangerous Thing

Max and Annie, with dubious help from three of their own great ladies of the mystery -- Annie's pixilated mother-in-law, a batty local dowager, and a Christie crime fanatic -- learn that just about everyone at the school had means, motive, and access to the murder weapons. From the secretly boozing professor of advertising to the muscle-bound campus cad who barters passing grades for a little extracurricular activity, anyone on the faculty is a possible killer -- waiting to strike again!

--This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The fifth in a series featuring bookstore owner and amateur sleuth Annie Laurence Darling ( Death on Demand ), this tale is long on literary allusions but short on momentum. Invited to teach a class on mystery novels, offered for some strange reason in the journalism, rather than the English department of a local college, Annie finds that university politics become grist for the school's paper. Student editor Brad Kelly's expose of a professor's embezzlement, and of the journalism department's apparent cover-up, lead to that instructor's suicide. Department chair R. T. Burke tracks the source for Kelly's story, but before he can disclose it, Burke is murdered and the newspaper office bombed, killing a secretary. Annie and her P.I. husband, Max, who had been hired to investigate the suicide, tolerate the cheerfully irritating help of Laurel, Max's mother; Miss Dora, a college trustee; and Henny, Annie's best customer, described by Annie as "a free spirit, an old bat, and a mystery nut." Several additional characters are also mystery nuts who frequently cite plots, characters and authors. This ploy does not compensate for Hart's thin characterizations or her penchant for lists and chronologies that undercut the suspense.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

Review

"Hart has a light touch with her characters, a fresh heroine in Annie, and a delightfully different setting!"

-- Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 382 pages
• Publisher: John Curley & Assoc (December 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0792711394
• ISBN-13: 978-0792711391
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,230,611 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

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best Annie and Max book!, August 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Little Class on Murder (Death on Demand Mysteries, No. 5) (Mass Market Paperback)

I enjoyed A Little Class on Murder more than any of the other Death on Demand books, and I love them all. This one was the most enjoyable to me because Henny, Miss Dora, and Laurel are all in Annie's class together. They have all wrecked havoc in Annie's life before, but it is when these three ladies form their own manic version of the 3 Musketeers that they really shine. Being in Grad school, I enjoyed reading a mystery set at a college campus. And, as always, Annie and Max are the perfect couple. Very fun!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Great Bibliography, September 27, 2001

By 

Chutes (East Brunswick, NJ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Little Class on Murder (Death on Demand Mysteries, No. 5) (Mass Market Paperback)

You have to like mysteries about the field of mysteries or else the numerous allusions to other mysteries could be annoying. You do NOT need to have read other mysteries to read this one, however. The writer uses other titles to make comparisons, generally. I found it all fascinating and am whiling away a medical leave ordering titles I find mentioned. There are some real classics, many out of print but available used, that I never would have thought to look for. Hart's allusions extend outside the mystery field to jurisprudence, biography, and journalism, but the real meat is the mystery bibliography. The actual mystery is interesting, with lots of list writing and puzzling, livened up with eccentric characters. I particularly liked a very minor character, a befuddled student in a class on Mysteries who had never read one. One puzzle--why teach a course on mysteries in a journalism department? Only vaguely explained. An earlier reviewer mentioned bad language which puzzled me. I didn't notice any.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Annie teaches a little class on murder, June 13, 2002

By 

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

This review is from: A Little Class on Murder (Death on Demand Mysteries, No. 5) (Mass Market Paperback)

Annie Laurance Darling, owner of the mystery book store Death on Demand, is invited to teach a class on "Three Great Ladies of Mystery" at a local college. She looks forward to the challenge until she discovers that three of her students are her mother-in-law Laurel and two of her cronies. This is only the beginning of her troubles, however, because she soon discerns serious jealousy and in-fighting among faculty members. Before it's all over, there is a suicide, a murder and a bombing. There are lots of suspects and everyone seems to have a motive, so Annie is puzzled as to who's behind all the chaos. This is one of the better books of the series and it contains a lot of humor, and an interesting resolution to the mystery.