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April Fool Dead : A Death on Demand Mystery

April Fool Dead : A Death on Demand Mystery

List Price: $6.99
Your Price: $6.29
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A welcome return to Browards Rock
Review: Annie and Max Darling have taken charge of Annie's stepsister Rachel while Pudge is off traveling. One of the local high school teachers is found shot to death at her home. She happens to be one of Henny Brawley's best friends. In her hallway, the police find boxes of bogus flyers meant to upstage the ingenious promotion Annie's Death on Demand is sponsoring to celebrate the newest Emma Clyde mystery. Henny is convinced that Kay (the deceased) had nothing to do with the flyers, and Annie and Max promise to help find out who killed her. In addition to this mystery, Laurel is in search of drug dealers,scandalous doings are going on among the faculty and students at the high school,and retired police chief Frank Saulter is being stalked by a killer from the past. It seems that Annie and Max have gotten themselves into more than they bargained for this time.

This is among the best of the series so far. The story lines merge well into each other, and even though the author gives you all the clues, it is still difficult to solve the mystery. It is especially hard to separate the different plot lines, but alot of fun to read and try to figure it all out!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: GREAT BOOK
Review: Annie Darling is sponsoring a book signing by Broward's Rock's most illustrious author, Emma Clyde, at her bookstore, Death on Demand. She creates brochures with clues to different mysteries to advertise the event and to entice readers to enter the contest to discover which books are referred to by the clues. Meanwhile someone else distributes bogus flyers which refer to unsolved mysteries which have occurred on the island in the past. Things become even more complicated when murders begin to occur. Annie and Max try to solve the murders and determine who has distributed the muckraking flyers. It is somewhat distracting as a reader to have 5 mysteries hanging in the air along with the murders. The solution at the end seems quite abrupt and incomplete as there is never a good explanation as to who distributed the flyers and why they were ever created in the first place. This is not typical of author Hart, which causes this book to be one of the lesser lights of the series.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Fragmented story line
Review: Annie Darling is sponsoring a book signing by Broward's Rock's most illustrious author, Emma Clyde, at her bookstore, Death on Demand. She creates brochures with clues to different mysteries to advertise the event and to entice readers to enter the contest to discover which books are referred to by the clues. Meanwhile someone else distributes bogus flyers which refer to unsolved mysteries which have occurred on the island in the past. Things become even more complicated when murders begin to occur. Annie and Max try to solve the murders and determine who has distributed the muckraking flyers. It is somewhat distracting as a reader to have 5 mysteries hanging in the air along with the murders. The solution at the end seems quite abrupt and incomplete as there is never a good explanation as to who distributed the flyers and why they were ever created in the first place. This is not typical of author Hart, which causes this book to be one of the lesser lights of the series.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Very Entertaining Whodunit
Review: Annie Darling, owner of the mystery book store Death on Demand, is busily preparing for a book signing of local author Emma Clyde's latest bestseller "Whodunit?". Annie, who is always fond of sponsoring contests in her store, has come up with a special promotion for Emma's book signing. The special contest is a challenge to identify nine mysteries and their authors, based on clues given in an advertising flyer which Annie has distributed around the island. However, several days before the signing event, another set of mysterious flyers appear on Broward's Rock Island which appear as if Annie is accusing some of her neighbors or murder and other crimes as part of her contest. In order to clear the name of her store, Annie and her husband Max set out to find the real author of the fake contest flyers.

I felt that the first half of this book moved pretty slowly. I did enjoy Ms. Hart's wonderful descriptions of the South Carolina swamps and wildlife. The pace of the story picked up for the last one hundred pages or so, when two island residents are found brutally murdered. Together with her friend Henny, Annie and Max try to discover if the flyers are related to the murders, or if the flyers were just a smoke screen to divert attention from the real murderer.

All in all, this was an enjoyable read. The many subplots in the book are all neatly tied up in the end, and there are many clues to send the reader down the wrong path in figuring out whodunit.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: GREAT BOOK
Review: Beside the fact that Carolyn Hart is great, this book was one of her best. It get's you from the beginning & has you guessing all the way to the end. I was really surprised to find out who the killer was. But it was fun trying to guess. Very good book.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: April Fool Dead
Review: Having plastered teensy Broward Rock, South Carolina, with flyers announcing local super-author Emma Clyde's upcoming book signing at Death on Demand, proprietor Annie Darling is extremely agitated when someone cribs her style and issues similar-looking flyers that accuse locals of hit-and-run driving, adultery, the wrongful incarceration of wife-killer Jud Hamilton, the inappropriately accidental verdict assigned to Emma's second husband's drowning, and the fatal mishap of a tipsy heiress aboard a yacht. Swinging into full amateur detective mode, Annie and her husband Max, stalwart of the newly opened Confidential Commissions, scour the island in search of the mysterious flyer-writer. Max's wacky mom Laurel, on the trail of drug-runners, is shot at and goes to ground; a teacher who lives near where Laurel was sniped at is shot and killed; and a beautiful, worried student, who recently dumped her boyfriend for the lure of an older man, is found drowned in unfriendly waters. Still, the Darlings, their friend Henny, and mystery writer Clyde continue to play detective-interrogating, prying, entrapping, alternately aiding and impeding the local coppers. But not to worry: it all comes out fine, if you discount a few murders, in time for Emma Clyde to hold forth at a packed book signing. Silly, illogical, and increasingly mannered. But devotees of the Death on Demand series (Sugar Plum Dead, 2000, etc.) will probably adore the mystery quizzes, the suggested reading titles, and the serene hubris that lets amateurs believe they can outsolve the pros.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great Entry in the Series
Review: I have to say that Carolyn G. Hart is one of the few authors writing two series, almost concurrently, about which I would be hard pressed to say which I enjoy more. Usually, I have a clear preference. Her other series, the Henry O. books, has a main character that is tougher than either of the stars of these, the Death On Demand mysteries - Annie & Max Darling, but these books tend to have more humor and light heartedness that I find enjoyable.
In this entry, Annie is preparing her store for a signing party for the new book by local author, Emma Clyde. Someone uses her technique of advertising the signing, however, to drudge up some old mysteries on the island and creates some hard feelings in the villagers. When a teacher is killed and is implicated as the person behind the fake flyers, Annie and Max attempt to straighten the situation out.
All in all, a great book, just what you expect from Ms. Hart.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: I didn't Like Anything about this Book.
Review: I just simply could not "get into this book." I tried for a very long time, but it just would not capture my imagination, warm my heart, nor instill any thought that I should want to even finish this book. Sorry, there are so many better books out there than to try to very hard and exert so much effort for not.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Couldn't finish this one
Review: I started listening to the unabridged book on tape. I had to struggle to listen to the 1st side of the 1st cassette. I stopped after that. There was nothing I enjoyed about the storyline.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Couldn't finish this one
Review: I started listening to the unabridged book on tape. I had to struggle to listen to the 1st side of the 1st cassette. I stopped after that. There was nothing I enjoyed about the storyline.


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