Being dead can't put a damper on spirited, holiday-loving Bailey Ruth Raeburn.
Christmas is a time for family and giving, and a wealthy woman in Adelaide, Oklahoma, is about to embrace both. Discovering that she has a young grandson, the dowager decides to change her will to leave the bulk of her fortune to the young boy—an alteration that stuns the rest of her family. But a scrooge of a determined heir makes sure she never signs the new document. When she is found dead, it's up to that irrepressible spirit Bailey Ruth, on assignment from Wiggins and Heaven's Department of Good Intentions, to protect a little boy, foil a murderer, and save Christmas.
There's only one teeny hitch: how can Bailey Ruth figure out which family member was desperate enough to kill when everyone has a motive?
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....
Bailey Ruth Raeburn has always been great at solving mysteries. Why should a little thing like her death change anything? In fact, being dead gives her more of an opportunity to be on top of events. Bailey Ruth is delighted that her unique position as a ghost makes it possible for her to lend a helping hand, sometimes seen and sometimes not. And if anybody needs a little help, it's Kathleen, the pastor's wife. There's a dead man on her porch, and once the body is discovered, the pastor is sure to become a suspect.
Uncharitable people might call it meddling, but Bailey Ruth knows Kathleen needs her help! As a member of Heaven's Department of Good Intentions, Bailey Ruth goes back to earth to extricate Kathleen from a dire situation. If Bailey Ruth has to bend a few rules to help Kathleen save her family, Wiggins, her fussbudget supervisor, will make sure it all turns out right in the end.
Ghostly gumshoe Bailey Ruth Raeburn of Heaven’s Department of Good Intentions is checking out a troubling disturbance in Adelaide, Oklahoma. But what seems at first like simple vandalism won’t be an open-and-shut case…
Bailey Ruth’s supervisor, Wiggins, is worried about a dear old friend. The ghost of elegant Lorraine Marlow haunts Adelaide’s college library. Known as the Lady of the Roses, she plays matchmaker, using the fragrant flowers to pair up students. But someone’s making mischief after hours, leaving roses strewn about the library, destroying a gargoyle, and stealing a valuable book. Concerned with Lorraine’s reputation among the living, Wiggins dispatches the irrepressible redhead Bailey Ruth to investigate.
Soon after her arrival, trouble begins to stack up. A campus security guard is shot by an intruder, and Bailey Ruth uncovers a catalog of evidence blaming a student for the crimes. As a ghost, she may not be all there, but even Bailey Ruth can decipher that something isn’t adding up. So with police preparing to make an arrest, the spirited detective must race against the clock to find the real culprit, because when justice is overdue, it takes more than death to stop Bailey Ruth Raeburn…
Annie Darling discovers the secret of the Franklin house, but DEATH WALKED IN . . .
Max Darling hasn't been interested in crime since his brush with a seductive young woman put him in danger of losing his freedom. He even refuses to talk to a woman who calls for help and says she is afraid. The caller leaves word she's hidden something in the antebellum house Max and his wife, Annie, are restoring. When Annie finds out, she hurries to the woman's home, only to discover her shot. Annie hears her final whisper as she holds the dying woman's hand.
Evidence links the dead woman to a nearby home, where a fortune in gold coins has gone missing. The gold coins, rare Double Eagles, were stolen from a house filled with visiting family members, twentysomethings hungry for money and several with secrets they must keep. Is one of them willing to kill for a fortune in coins? Or is it the dead woman's high school dropout son? Max is there when the police arrest the son, but the boy's shock upon learning of his mother's death convinces Max of his innocence. Max and Annie plunge wholeheartedly into the investigation.
But are the coins hidden in Annie and Max's Franklin house? The intruder who shoots at Max seems to think so. And who walks in when Annie discovers the secret of that house?
The late-as in Dearly Departed-Bailey Ruth Raeburn is delighted when she's assigned a new mission by Heaven's Department of Good Intentions, even if she is no good at following the rules for Earthly Visitations. This time she's determined to be the perfect unseen emissary, no matter what it takes. Arriving late in the evening in her old hometown of Adelaide, Oklahoma, to find a woman drowning in a pond, Bailey Ruth carries out a daring rescue with textbook invisible effort. But she soon realizes there's more to the woman's accident than a late-night walk gone wrong. The young widow was running away-but what from? Soon Bailey Ruth finds herself caught up in a complex web of family secrets, loyalties and lies-and if she doesn't act fast, an innocent will be locked up for a very long time... Like a warm hug from a loved one, this book is the perfect escapist listen for cozy mystery fans, whether you're old friends with the lively, always entertaining Bailey Ruth or have yet to make her acquaintance.
When Bailey Ruth Raeburn passed over into the great beyond, she was delighted to discover her sleuthing days would last an eternity. Joining Heaven's Department of Good Intentions, she uses her unique advantages as a ghost—sometimes you see her, sometimes you don't—to help those in need and ensure the wicked get their just deserts.
However, on this latest mission, Bailey Ruth finds it more difficult than ever to keep up with her boss Wiggins's rules for good spirit deportment. Not only is the woman she is supposed to save determined to thwart Bailey Ruth's good intentions at every turn, she just so happens to be one of Bailey Ruth's oldest enemies. Not that that should matter to one of Heaven's best and brightest emissaries, but still, there is only so much a person can put up with—living or dead.
But solving Bailey Ruth's toughest case yet means managing a recalcitrant charge, a fraudulent medium, a mother's heartbreak, old passions and new, and a telltale rawhide dog bone. Heaven help her!
Summer is a hectic time of the year for Annie Darling. Sun and scorching temperatures never fail to bring swarms of tourists to her mystery bookstore, Death on Demand. But Annie still finds time to enjoy herself. The Broward's Rock Fourth of July dance is just around the corner, and the island is buzzing with excitement - Shell Hurst included. Shell is the kind of woman wives hate - and most of them wish she would just disappear. But when she does, Annie can't help but feel like someone should be looking for her. The residents of Broward's Rock grow uneasy when a second islander mysteriously disappears. Annie and her husband, Max, soon find themselves following a twisted trail marked by blackmail, betrayal, and adultery.
Part 23 of the Death on Demand series.
New York Times bestselling author Carolyn Hart's ghostly gumshoe Bailey Ruth Raeburn is frequently amusing but this is the first time she's been a muse.
When you wish upon a star, you get Bailey Ruth? You do if you're a little girl whose mom needs help and you touch the soft heart of Supervisor Wiggins at Heaven's Department of Good Intentions. Granted it's not the usual task of an emissary, but then again Bailey Ruth is not your usual emissary. So Wiggins dispatches the spunky spirit to her old hometown of Adelaide, Oklahoma, to help a single mother and struggling writer find some creative solutions to her problems.
Deidre Davenport is just about broke, trying to support her two children, and has her hopes pinned on getting a faculty job with the Goddard College English department. Jay Knox, who is in charge of the writer's conference she's participating in, will decide who gets the job, but he's more interested in her body than her body of work.
Not long after his advances are rejected, Knox turns up dead-and Deirdre's fingerprints are found on the murder weapon. Bailey Ruth knows Deirdre is innocent, and that the professor's lewd behavior is bound to have rubbed others the wrong way. Now she must find out who really knocked off Knox if Deirdre and her family are ever going to have a happy ending.
In the latest Death on Demand Mystery from the New York Times bestselling author of Don't Go Home, book seller Annie Darling learns murder and money go hand in hand...
Annie's friend and fellow shop owner Ves Roundtree is a very wealthy woman. Her rich brother entrusted her with his estate, and upon her death, his fortune is to be divided. Several cash-strapped islanders are in line to collect life-changing inheritances. The problem is, Ves is very much alive.
Ves hosts a dinner for the prospective beneficiaries and feels a chill in the air that has nothing to do with the wintry season. Not long after, she suffers a bad fall that was no accident. Everyone at the table had a motive but not a shred of evidence was left behind.
When one of the suspects is found floating in the harbor and Ves disappears, Annie and her husband Max spring into action to catch a calculating killer before greed takes another life.
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.
National Bestselling Author and winner of multiple Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity Awards, Carolyn Hart continues to dazzle mystery fans with an all new Dead on Demand Mystery.
Winter has arrived in Broward's Rock, South Carolina, and business has slowed for Annie Darling, owner of mystery bookstore Death on Demand. So when the island's resident writer publishes the latest in her popular mystery series, Annie jumps at the chance to host a book signing, even though it conflicts with her shift at the local charity shop, Better Tomorrow.
Luckily, fellow volunteer Gretchen Burkholt agrees to sub for her. The signing goes well, but Gretchen interrupts the event multiple times, leaving voice mails about scandalous news she's dying to share. Even though Gretchen tends to be excitable, Annie heads over to Better Tomorrow, where she finds Gretchen dead on the floor, an axe by her side.
Annie enlists the help of her husband, Max, to piece together a puzzle involving an overturned kayak, a stolen motorboat, a troubled love affair, and a reckless teenager. And she must tread carefully in her investigation, because a killer is on the loose, and that killer works well in the foggy days of winter...
