National best-selling author Carolyn Hart presents an original new novel about a woman with a curious ability that drops her headfirst into a world of intrigue and murder....
Ever since the death of her fiancé, Nela Farley has found herself plagued by a sixth sense: she understands the thoughts of cats when she looks into their eyes. Nela knows that what she's experiencing is completely irrational and tries to convince herself that she is simply transferring her own thoughts that she doesn't want to face.
When her adventurous sister, Chloe, goes on a trip and asks for a favor, Nela welcomes the distraction and agrees to substitute at Chloe's job at a charitable foundation. Chloe has arranged a place for her sister to stay, but when Nela shows up, she encounters the previous tenant's cat and gets a flash of thought: ". . . dead . . . dead and gone . . . She loved me . . . board rolled on the second step . . ."
Nela wants to ignore what the cat saw, but the idea that the death of former tenant Marian Grant wasn't an accident is something she can't ignore. As Nela begins to do some research into Marian's life, strange events begin to occur, all seeming to lead back to the Haklo Foundation. But when a detective becomes suspicious of Nela's sister and a second murder occurs, Nela realizes she'll have to make the most of her unwanted ability to figure out what's really going on, before she meets her own untimely end....
A group of Christie buffs. . .In honor of Agatha Christie's one hundredth birthday, mystery bookstore owner Annie Laurance Darling plans a week-long celebration of mystery, treasure hunts, title clues, and Christie trivia. Yet even as the champagne is chilling and the happy guests begin arriving on Broward's Rock Island, Annie feels a niggling sense of doom. But the last thing she or her guests expect is that the scheduled fun and mayhem will include a real-life murder. The unexpected arrival of Neil Bledsoe, the most despised book critic in America, was sure to raise a few hackles. An advocate of hard-boiled detection and gory true crime, Bledsoe drops a bombshell on the devoted Christie assemblage: He's penning a scurrilous biography of the grand dame of suspense herself. Before the first title clue is solved, no less than two attempts are made on Bledsoe's life. Now Annie and her unflappable husband, Max Darling, find themselves trying to stop a murder in the making-only the first corpse isn't the one they're expecting. . .and it isn't the last.
A frantic phone call from an old and dear friend on the other side of the world sends Henrie O to San Antonio, Texas, in search of her friend's granddaughter, Iris Chavez. Iris had been working at the family-owned Tesoros Gallery, a shop renowned for the priceless treasures it hunts for its rich and famous patrons. Iris has disappeared without a word; her apartment has been ransacked, yet nothing is missing. And nobody at Tesoros seems to care. Why? Somewhere in the gallery or among the family members is a secret - a secret Henrie O must uncover if she is to find Iris.
Annie can hardly believe it. The police say her husband, Max, sits behind bars. They speak of him with a beautiful blonde. By the time Annie bails out Max, the blonde has disappeared and Max is the prime suspect in a crime.
The baffling, bloodstained trail leads to the home of the Tarrants, a venerable Southern family with a violent history dating back to the Revolution -- and ghosts of a more recent vintage. Infighting and mayhem reign in the family, and a killer wants hide the secrets that haunt the Tarrants. It's up to Annie to stop him.
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!
Chase Prescott, media magnate, is nearly killed by a box of cyanide candy. Fearing for his life, he calls his former lover, retired reporter Henrietta O'Dwyer Collins. His request is simple: He'll assemble all the suspects if she will kindly point out the would-be murderer.
On Chase's private island off the South Carolina coast, Henrie O meets the players in this deadly drama: Prescott's unstable young wife, his sullen stepson, and his toady of a secretary. The field of suspects is wide, and Henrie O has her work cut out for her. As she unearths a will and new evidence, a killer hurricane sweeps up from Cuba, threatening to maroon them. But in this luxurious vacation spot, the storm's fury is less dangerous than the murderous greed of one of Prescott's guests.
Mystery bookstore owner Annie Laurance didn't really want to go to her neighbor's Valentine Day masked ball -- particularly not after the voluptuous brunette made a pass at Annie's husband, Max. So when her dizzy mother-in-law, Laurel, made a surprise visit to Broward's Rock Island, Annie thought it would be a perfect excuse to skip the party. She should have known better: True to form, Laurel accepted the invitation for all three of them. But the biggest surprise of all came at the party's end, when Annie found the amorous hostess in the gazebo—murdered.
One of America's most highly acclaimed mystery writers brings us another installment in the career of Henrietta "Henrie O" Collins, an ex-reporter turned sleuth. These days, Henrie O is teaching journalism at Thorndyke University, where she encourages an ambitious student to pursue an investigative series about three unrelated and hitherto unsolved local crimes. But the student's study habits get her killed. Her body's discovered at the site of one of the three crimes she was investigating. The police and the powers-that-be at Thorndyke are rabidly against Henrie O's involvement in the case. But the stubborn, sixtysomething investigator is committed to dredging up a past everyone wants to keep buried -- even if it means placing herself firmly in the killer's path.
6th in Death on Demand seriesAt Annie Laurance's Death on Demand bookstore on Broward's Rock Island, South Carolina, murder suddenly isn't confined to the well-stocked shelves. Author Elliot Morgan's abrupt demise during a weekly gathering of famous mystery writers called the Sunday Night Regulars is proof positive that a bloody sword is sometimes mightier than a brilliant pen. With Annie in the unenviable position of primary police suspect, the pretty young mystery maven and her wealthy paramour, Max Darling, embark on an investigation into a classic locked-room mystery with high stakes. Failing to unmask a brutal and ingenious killer could mean prison for Ms. Laurance. Success could mean her death. Who could plot a murder better than a mystery writer?
Everyone--including mystery bookstore owner Annie Laurance--loves Arsenic and Old Lace. But something wicked is poisoned a local summer stock production as cast members stab each other in the back and props are sabotaged. Worst of all, the star, aging Hollywood beach-blanket hunk Shane Petree, butchers his lines--while getting top billing in bed with wives and teenage daughters around town. No wonder somebody wants to draw his final curtain. With a little help from Miss Marple, Poirot, and Agatha the Bookstore Cat, a pompous prosecutor tries to pin a murder on Max, Annie's own leading man. Unless Annie can prove her darling's innocence, their wedding date's off! Invoking the tried-and-true methods of her favorite literary sleuths, Annie snoops around the greasepaint and glitter of the show-stopper scene if she doesn't watch it, because theatrical murderers never play fair.
Death on Demand Mystery series
Invited to stage a Mystery Night for the annual antebellum house tour of the Historical Preservation Society of Chastain, South Carolina, Annie Laurance instead finds herself the leading lady in a flesh-and blood drama. The play's the thing when the curtain falls on grande dame Corinne Webster. While jeweled fingers point, accusing Annie of murder, the perpetrator lurks among the cast and the murder weapon is one of the props. Within the tight-laced society of Chastain, Annie is guilty until proven innocent. With her fiance, Max Darling, Annie pieces together evidence to clear her name - until the chief witness is murdered. Now it will take all of her sleuthing skills to discover the evil in the heart of Chastain's Beautiful People.
Henrietta O'Dwyer Collins, known to her friends as Henrie O, is America's favorite ex-journalist turned sleuth. These days she's looking forward to a quiet holiday at a wealthy friend's mountain cabin in Tennessee. Instead, Henrie O finds herself in the middle of another murder mystery -- this time in the well-heeled neighborhood of Fair Haven. Married to the daughter of a prominent citizen, her friend's nephew appears one morning covered in his wife's blood -- but he swears he didn't kill her. The killing draws Henrie into the lives of the town's best families, and into a world where privilege masks a hotbed of sex, lies, and desperation. But when another corpse turns up, Henrie O knows time is running out. Now she must untangle a deadly web of deceit - or become the next victim of an unknown killer.
"Cheers for Henrie O, an intelligent, engaging sleuth!" (Mary Higgins Clark)
