Character List


Hart - Design for Murder

Annie Laurance - owner Death on Demand
Ingrid DOD clerk, springy gray hair in tight curls
Max Darling - boyfriend PI
Ben Parotti ferry captain

Idell Gordon Swamp Fox Inn owner
Corinne Prichard Webster blonde president of Chastain Historical Preservation Society.
Marybelle maid
Tim Bond painter curator at the Prichard Museum.
Sybil Chastain Giacomo - slut, she makes them sit up and take notice.
Lucy Haines, a member of the Board. - librarian
Gail Prichard niece
Bobby Frazier, reporter for the Chastain Courier. boyfriend
Mr. Roscoe Merrill board member of Preservation Society
Jessica
Dr. John Sanford’s foolish plan to expand clinc
Edith Ferrier. Red Cross office coordinator & board member
Miss Dora Brevard, who is the mainstay of the Society. ebony cane in one withered hand is permanent secretary to the Board.”
Louisa Binning, the secretary of Preservation Society
Mrs. Brawley DOD customer
Harley Edward Jenkins III control forty percent of the stock in Halcyon Development Inc.

Annie's suspect list
Sybil Chastain Giacomo. Max’s eyes gleamed. Annie described
her as a Ruebens nude in an Oscar de la Renta dress. With
the mouth of a termagant. Awesome.
Lucy Haines. Sounded nice. Annie said she looked rather
serious. A lean, tanned woman with a firm handshake. A
librarian.
Roscoe Merrill. A stalwart of the community, obviously.
Treasurer of the Society. A lawyer with a face that kept its
own counsel. He’d promised La Grande Dame Webster he’d
look into the letter, but all the while he kept stressing that it
was better to drop the matter.
Dr. John Sanford. Intense, self-absorbed, arrogant. And
something in the letter made him mad.
Edith Ferrier. The letter made her mad, too. Why did she
take it personally? And she didn’t like Corinne. Why?
Miss Dora Brevard, permanent secretary of the Board, and
Chastain’s ancient historian in residence. But she seemed to aim
her venom at Sybil, not Corinne.
Gail Prichard. The letter writer said Mrs. Moneypot’s niece
was seeing a very unsuitable man. Obviously, that was a
reference to the combative reporter.



Books Mentioned
Barnard, Robert
O'Marie , Sister Carol Anne Sister Mary Helen
Mortimer, John Rumpole of the Bailey
Hugo, Victor Les Miserables
Clark, Douglas Premedicated Murder
Clinton-Baddeley,V. C. Death's Bright Dart
Heard, H.F. A Taste for Honey
Huxley, Elspeth Joscelin Grant The African Poison Murders
Simpson, Dorothy Last Seen Alive
Langton, Jane Emily Dickinson Is Dead
Agatha Christie’s Cards on the Table
Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye
Virginia Rich’s The Baked Bean Supper Murders.
John Dickson Carr’s The Hollow Man
Gwendolyn Butler’s Coffin in Oxford
Sax Rohmer’s Fire-Tongue (finally had to ask his friend Harry Houdini to solve)









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Digital audiobook read by Kate Reading.

Book # 2 in the Death on Demand series, featuring mystery bookstore owner Annie Laurance. Annie’s been invited to stage a Mystery Night for the annual antebellum house tour of the Historical Preservation Society in Chastain, South Carolina. But there is some personal drama going on among the board members and Annie is used to embarrass the grande dame of the group. Annie and her fiancé Max have just about cleared her name in that kerfuffle when she finds a body on the grounds of the estate. The weapon is one of the props Annie brought along for the game and suddenly she’s the number one suspect.

Hart writes a fast-paced cozy mystery with a great central cast of characters and a wonderful premise. I love the mystery bookstore, though I did get a little irritated by how often an author / book was mentioned. I very much liked the Mystery Night puzzle going on at the same time that a real murder was being investigated, though I sometimes got confused about which “clues” referred to the game vs the actual crime. I didn’t have a copy of the text handy when I was listening; I’m sure I’d have had a easier time keeping it straight in text rather than audio.

Kate Reading does a marvelous job reading the audiobook. She’s a talented voice artist and was able to differentiate the many characters. For a short while I was listening at double speed and her diction was still clear and understandable. ( )

Just couldn't get into this - something about the writing was annoying this time. Have read others in the series and enjoyed. There was too much description and it just annoyed me. ( )

As often happens, this second in the Death on Demand series does not live up to the first in the series. ( )

February 19, 2000
Design for Murder
Carolyn Hart

Book #2 in the “Death on Demand” series. This one doesn’t center around the bookstore.

Annie’s been asked to stage a “Mystery Night” for the annual antebellum house tour of the Historical Preservation Society of Chastain, South Carolina” (why is there one of these in every cozy mystery series? The protagonist-planning-a-mystery-night-thing? Not that I’m complaining!).

The person who asks her to do it does so reluctantly, and with considerable distaste – she thinks the whole thing is supremely tacky, but the other members of the HP Society outvoted her. Corinne Webster is a bona fide snob, and everyone hates her - including her husband, who’s having an affair with a much younger local schoolteacher. Of course, right before the Mystery Night is to begin, Corinne is found murdered down by the pond, having been done in by one of the Mystery Night props, no less.

Again, Annie is one of the main suspects (this could get a little old, but it’s a common thread in this series), so she and Max have to piece it all together.

Carolyn Hart has been referred to as “the American Agatha Christie”, but I don’t see it. That’s not a negative statement. I like Christie, but Hart’s style is completely, utterly different. The characters are warmer and more fleshed out, the stories light and very modern – not dry and acerbic like Christie. Totally different. Hart also doesn’t use anything similar to Christie’s complex machinations – it’s all pretty upfront and uncomplicated. ( )