Engaged to Die

Hart's fourteenth Death on Demand mystery is richly evocative of January on the foggy, chilly, damp island of Broward's Rock, South Carolina. Invited to a combined art opening and engagement party, mystery bookstore owner Annie Darling and her husband, Max, are present when the groom-to-be is found with his head bashed in. Circumstantial evidence points to one of Annie's young friends as the most promising suspect. After Max is deputized to help solve the case but Annie is not, Annie works on her own to exonerate her friend, on whom the police and Max concentrate to the exclusion of several other possible suspects. All the while, Annie and Max's easy, loving relationship continues, and Annie's somewhat spacey mother-in-law offers her encouragement through quotations on friendship. Mystery buffs will enjoy identifying the paintings of mystery scenes Hart describes at the beginning of the book and answering the trivia questions that Annie's longtime nemesis, Henny, uses to try to stump her. An enjoyable addition to a long-running series.