April Fool Dead: A Death on Demand Mystery
By Carolyn Hart
3.5/5
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Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
Someone is playing a rather nasty April Fool's prank on mystery bookstore owner Annie Darling. A felonious forger on the idyllic -- if rarely tranquil -- South Carolina island of Broward's Rock has made it appear as if Annie is accusing some of her neighbors of murder. In the wink of a bloodshot eye, the Darling name is mud . . . and then the Broward's Rock body count starts mysteriously increasing. And now it's up to Annie to follow the well-hidden trail of the vicious trickster -- or a secret slayer's next lethal "joke" may very well be on her!
Carolyn Hart
An accomplished master of mystery, Carolyn Hart is the author of twenty previous Death on Demand novels. Her books have won multiple Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity Awards. She is also the creator of the Henrie O series, featuring a retired reporter, and the Bailey Ruth series, starring an impetuous, redheaded ghost. One of the founders of Sisters in Crime, Hart lives in Oklahoma City.
Read more from Carolyn Hart
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Reviews for April Fool Dead
68 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Entertaining cast of kooky characters and enough mystery to keep it interesting. The real star for me is that island- I'm adding it to my bucket list of places I must visit.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Annie Darling has thought up the absolute best promotion for the April 1st book-signing of Emma Clyde’s latest Marigold Rembrandt mystery. She’s papered the island of Broward’s Rock with flyers and is sure to have a huge turnout at her Death on Demand mystery bookstore. When she spots a skywriting plane spelling out the book title – WHODUNIT? – she assumes her wealthy husband, Max, has orchestrated the surprise. But it wasn’t Max, or anyone else Annie knows. And more distressing, Annie soon learns that someone has distributed fake flyers with clues to several local crimes and offering a $1000 prize for the first person to solve them. If this is someone’s idea of an April Fool’s joke, it’s not very funny. Annie has to put a stop to this; her business is at risk!
This is book # 13 in the Death on Demand series. I read the first one a couple of years ago and it was entertaining enough. I picked this one up because the cover art satisfied a challenge. I’m sorry I didn’t check the library’s shelves for other options, because this was really dreadful.
The mystery flyers are just a lot of noise and Hart keeps jumping from character to character giving different points of view. The murder doesn’t happen until page 150, and apparently only Annie is investigating because we hardly see a police officer Then there is the side story involving Max’s mother, Laurel – a bigger-than-life wealthy widow with way too much time on her hands – which is totally unnecessary. I never did figure out what all the divining rods were for.
I have a feeling that this series, like so many others, has more than run its course; the author seems to have run out of coherent ideas. In a nutshell – the characters aren’t developed; the plot is disorganized; clues are nonexistent; the writing is padded with descriptions that add nothing to the story or atmosphere. Oh, and the cover art has absolutely nothing to do with the story, as far as I can tell. Don’t waste your time.