Customer Reviews

Southern Ghost

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The style Ms. Hart chose for this mystery kept me on the edge of my seat. It wasn't as funny as her previous tales, but certainly suspenseful. I loved her method of travelling back in time to give tidbits of information that would puzzle and then illuminate. As always, her setting is intricately woven into her story and you can feel and smell South Carolina before you are done. One of her best in this series.

Max Darling receives a panicky phone call from his client, Courtney Kimball. She urges him to meet with her immediately but when he arrives at the agreed-upon place, she does not show up. When they do some investigating Max and his wife Annie find that Courtney has just discovered that she is part of the wealthy and powerful Tarrant family. She wants Max to find out who murdered her father and grandfather in 1970. Max and Annie figure that it has to be either a family member or one of the servants, since they were the only ones with motive and opportunity. They travel to the family home and interview each of the suspects, finding that each person has a motive for the murders. Max and Annie discover many secrets in the Tarrant family and that wealth and prominence do not make them immune from tragedy, greed, and deceit. This is a page-turner that will keep you guessing until the very end.

Southern Ghost was one of the stronger books in the Death on Demand Series. It seems the characters and the stories get stronger as the series progresses. This story includes a large number of local ghost stories that add a real flavor for the past to the mystery at hand. The story has Hart's usual references to a multitude of mystery authors and books, as well as some of the more colorful characters from past books in this series. Including characters like Miss Dora and Sybil added zip to what was already a well planned mystery and gave readers a deeper sense of the area that the books are set in.

Max Darling has a problem; his client is missing in Carolyn Hart's SOUTHERN GHOST. A young woman is reported being seen with Max, which upsets Annie. Annie has long wanted Max to take his investigative business seriously, but when he does Annie discovers chinks in her own feelings.
The woman hired Max to trace the family tree of an old Chastain, SC family. When he does his client goes missing, but her blood stained car is discovered in a remote location.
Just how far will a family go to protect their historical image. Murder is not obstacle in there determination to hid the past.
A fun read.
Nash Black, author of SINS OF THE FATHERS.

I am finding this series is steadily improving as I go along. This was an excellent book. In it we have Max and Annie staying in a hotel Chastain while they are trying to find a young client of Max's who has gone missing. In their search they are are drawn into some monumental family squabbles that include two main important families in Chastain. They find they are also trying to solve a 22 year-old murder suicide, since it appears that this is what is behind the young girl's disappearance. The book kept me guessing most of the way through, but I couldn't seem to put it down. Visitations and ghost sitings helped make things interesting.

Annie Darling, owner of the Death on Demand bookstore, is shocked to hear talk about her husband, Max, and a beautiful blonde. By the time she's faced down a hostile police chief and bailed Max out of Chastain, South Carolina, jail, the lady has vanished and Max is the prime suspect in an unspecified crime. The baffling, bloodstained trail leads straight to the doorstep of Tarrant house, home of a venerable Southern family with a violent history dating back to the Revolution - and ghosts of a far more recent vintage.

Annie and Max find that the dignified facade of Tarrant House hides a hotbed of deadly passions as the family turns on itself in a mayhem of murdous motives and angry accusations. But in the end Annie must summon all her sleuthing skills to stop a desperate killer who is ready to strike again to keep the secrets that haunt the Tarrants from the light of day...

[8th in the Death on Demand series]

The style did not appeal to me the way she injected useless information and in doind so breaking dialouge into segments. This weakened the dialouge and the flow of the book. The ending seemed unimaginative after the creative beginning. I had high expectations for this book but the book fell far short.

It gets a little annoying when mysteries become politically correct and are used to make societal statements. If you are politically correct, try this and some of Nancy Pickard's books. They have the same effect.