Scandal in Fair Haven [Mass Market Paperback]

Carolyn G. Hart (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 1995

When her friend is murdered in her lavish Fair Haven estate, all signs point to the victim's husband, and ex-journalist Henrie O. tries to learn the truth by questioning suspects from the area's best families. Reprint.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Agatha Award-winning Hart takes her retired Missouri newspaperwoman, Henrietta O'Dwyer Collins, introduced in Dead Man's Island, to Tennessee, where she becomes the honorary aunt of a young man accused of killing his wife. Henrie O is vacationing at the mountain cabin of her friend Margaret, who is recovering from heart surgery, when Margaret's nephew, Craig Matthews, arrives distraught and bloodied. As he tells of having found his kitchen demolished and his wife Patty Kay murdered, Henrie O realizes that the weak-willed, perhaps devious, Craig has set himself up as the killer by running from the scene. As a favor to Margaret, she decides to investigate. In ritzy Fair Haven, near Nashville, Henrie discovers that the murdered woman had been a vibrant, forceful figure in town, a teacher and trustee at a posh private school (where a teenage girl recently committed suicide) and the owner of a bookstore where her friends worked as a sideline to their social pursuits. Gradually connecting the student's suicide to Patty Kay's death, Henrie also learns that each of the woman's friends has a motive for murder. From the first pages to the climax, where she uses a cannister of Mace to save herself from a murderer, Hart's widowed sleuth is a heroine of admirable courage and wit.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Hart's engaging armchair detective leaves her couch long enough to investigate a murder in an affluent community.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (May 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553565370
• ISBN-13: 978-0553565379
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 0.8 x 6.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #951,963 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

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not the vacation she'd planned on, April 7, 2002

By 

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

This review is from: Scandal in Fair Haven (Mass Market Paperback)

Henrie O plans on a vacation to her friend's cabin in the Cumberland Mountains. Unfortunately her friend becomes ill and is not able to go, but she urges Henrie O to go anyway. When she arrives at the cabin, she encounters her friend's nephew who is in shock and is covered with his wife's blood. He has discovered her dead body and has run away in a panic, thus squarely pointing the finger of suspicion at himself. Henrie O believes that the young man did commit the murder and she sets out to find out who did. The cabin is near the upper middle class town of Fair Haven, and Henrie O finds a lot of people who envied the dead woman and who stood to gain financially from her death. After the usual red herrings, Henrie O finally uncovers the surprising truth. Carolyn Hart's books are always engrossing and well-written and I would recommend them to mystery fans.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Scandal Bogs Down, December 3, 2005

By 

Mark Baker (Santa Clarita, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Scandal in Fair Haven (Mass Market Paperback)

Henrie O. is looking forward to a week's vacation with a friend at a cabin in Tennessee. But first her friend needs emergency heart surgery. Then Henrie's first night in the cabin is interrupted by the friend's nephew.

It's the middle of the night when Craig Matthews arrives bloody and upset. He's just found the body of his wife, Patty Kay, in their house in the town of Fair Haven. The police are looking for Craig because they believe he did it, and the fact that he ran doesn't help his case.

Henrie thinks it's a set up. The case against Craig is based on nothing but circumstantial evidence, and too many details point to him. It just all seems a little to convenient. Posing as Craig's aunt, she returns with him to Fair Haven to see if she can find the truth.

On the surface, Fair Haven seems like a nice, mostly rich town scandalized by a murder in the community. This kind of thing just doesn't happen there. But the more Henrie learns, the more motives seem to emerge. The problem is, just as many clues point to Craig as against him. Can Henrie clear Craig, or will she just put the final nails in his coffin?

This is a book populated by strong characters. While most of them are thrown at the reader at the beginning, with a little effort, they are easy to keep straight. Part of this is their personalities. While almost all of them are rich, Ms. Hart has made them unique, which helps them stand out in the reader's mind.

Once again, the style is outstanding as well. Things flow so well it's hard to put the book down because the reader has been drawn into the story.

The only real black mark against the book is the plot. It starts out strong with a great puzzle you can't wait to see solved. Then other suspects and motives are introduced. For the first half, things roll along fine. The problem comes in the second half. Henrie learns little new but keeps going over the same clues again and again reaching no new conclusions. Things do build again toward the climax, but the ending is a bit sudden given what has happened before and ultimately not as satisfying as it could have been.

I really did enjoy the book and am looking forward to more from Carolyn Hart. Hopefully the next book will have a climax that is more satisfying then this one.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, March 13, 2004

By 

Roger Long "longrush" (Port Clinton, OH USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Scandal in Fair Haven (Mass Market Paperback)

The novel starts well enough, but then it meanders for about a hundred pages. Again and again the writer mulls over the suspects without coming to any conclusion. One almost senses that space is being filled for the publisher, without the plot moving forward a single inch.

But that is tolerable, perhaps. What is not tolerable is the murderer confessing in detail (while a tape recorder is running) and explaining just how the killing took place and why the crime was necessary--and then committing suicide. Baloney! It has been done far too many times. Surely readers are sick of this by now. The evidence here against the killer is flimsy at best, certainly not strong enough to stand up in court if the accused has a decent lawyer. All the murderer has to do is deny, deny, deny. The easy way out of this for the writer? Those old stand-bys, confession and suicide. Surely there has to be some alternative to this facile denouement.