Mint Julep Murder

While ensconced on Broward's Rock Island, South Carolina, mystery bookstore owner and amateur sleuth Annie Darling serves as author liaison for the Dixie Book Festival on Hilton Head. Problems arise when a self-serving, small-time publisher promises to write a scandalous roman a clef featuring Annie's five charges, all quite famous. After the would-be writer dies of poisoning, all evidence points to Annie. When the beautiful, well-married, sexy, and witty Annie begins her quest for the truth, how can she lose?

The Christie Caper

Annie and Max Darling, sleuths and owners of the Death on Demand bookstore, are at it again. This time a week-long Agatha Christie conference has been organized by Annie and her co-sponsor, Lady Gwendolyn Tompkins. They have arranged for speeches, movies, discussions, a dress ball, contests, and teas. And then Neil Bledsoe, a book critic, shows up uninvited. He is despised by a great many people at the conference, and Annie suspects trouble may occur, which it does almost immediately. After a couple of murders, the conference seems to be falling apart.

Deadly Valentine

Annie and Max Darling have just moved into their new home. They have a lot of interesting neighbors, especially Sydney Cahill who goes after every man she meets, including Max. Annie is not too interested in going to Sydney's Valentine party, but Max's mother comes to visit and decides that it would be great fun for the three of them to attend the party. When Sydney turns up murdered, there are no lack of suspects since she was involved with most of the neighborhood men and there are many jealous wives. Annie and Max check into their neighbor's backgrounds and discover even more motives.

A Little Class on Murder

The fifth in a series featuring bookstore owner and amateur sleuth Annie Laurence Darling ( Death on Demand ), this tale is long on literary allusions but short on momentum. Invited to teach a class on mystery novels, offered for some strange reason in the journalism, rather than the English department of a local college, Annie finds that university politics become grist for the school's paper. Student editor Brad Kelly's expose of a professor's embezzlement, and of the journalism department's apparent cover-up, lead to that instructor's suicide.

Honeymoon with Murder

The murder of sleazy/disreputable Jesse Penrick interrupts Annie and Max Darling's honeymoon when Annie's friend, desperate for assistance, phones her. The friend's subsequent disappearance galvanizes the island of Broward's Rock (off the Carolinas), precipitates the involvement of a gaggle of sleuths, and provides for the author's frequent allusions to various mysteries (Annie runs the Death on Demand mystery bookstore). The literary references fall a bit thick, as do appendant crimes, batty characters, cliches, and extended "important" messages. True mystery devotees should love this.