Death Walked In

by: Carolyn Hart

Published by: HarperCollins Publishers

Reviewed by Caryn St. Clair

Once a year, the extended family of Geoffrey Grant gathers on Broward Island to celebrate his birthday. This year, just as after the entire family arrives, someone breaks into the Grant home during the night and steals a valuable coin collection. That same night, Gwen Jamison hears a fox trying to get into her chicken house. When she goes out to shoo the fox off, she sees someone she knows burying something in her family’s cemetery. Max and Annie Darling become involved when Gwen calls Max. Max doesn’t take the call, but Annie follows up and finds
Gwen murdered.

This book takes me back to my girlhood and my early days of Hardy Boy and Nancy Drew reading. Max and Annie are restoring a historic old house, with a secret hiding place, and a spooky past, complete with a book written about it. There is a missing treasure–the stolen coin collection, that may have been hidden in the Darlings’ house. The potential suspects are a colorful cast of characters. There is of coarse the entire Grant family who appear to love Geoffrey, but do they? None of the children are actually his biological children, and they each have their own problematic pasts. What about Gwen’s two sons? Would one of them have stolen the coins and then murdered his own mother to protect himself? There are even a couple of other people who are not part of Broward Island’s regular residents that are somewhat suspicious.

Hart’s latest entry in her Death on Demand series will bring smiles to your face. While this book does not have much of the regular Death on Demand Bookstore crowd or the connections as most of the books in the series, fans will be pleased that the five paintings depicting five mysteries are still included for you to puzzle over. Readers new to Hart, as well as her long-time fans, will find Death Walks In to be the perfect way to spend a summer’s day.

Armchair Interviews says: Hart has woven an entertaining tale filled with secrets–secret hiding places, family secrets, and secret pasts.

Author’s Web site: http://www.CarolynHart.com