IT’S ABOUT CRIME, by Marvin Lachman


CAROLYN G. HART – Death on Demand. Bantam, paperback original, 1987. Reprinted many times.

CAROLYN G. HART Death on Demand

   I tend to think of Death on Demand as a first book because it launched the Annie Laurance/Max Darling series. Actually, Carolyn Hart had published many books before it, some of which only appeared in Great Britain.

   This is truly a mystery fan’s mystery since hardly a page goes by without a reference to a mystery author or character. Sometimes the references are perfect, as when Annie, suspected of murder and vulnerable to the killer, says she is in “a Ruth Rendell world, not St. Mary Mead.”

   (Laurance is a dedicated mystery fan, as well as owner of the titular bookstore, located on a well-described island, based on Hilton Head, off the South Carolina coast. I wish she weren’t so dedicated to withholding evidence from the police, though I admit that Chief Saulter inspired no more confidence in me than he did in Annie.)

   A traditionalist, Hart provides two excellent diagrams, biographies of the suspects, and a timetable. Annie even calls all the suspects, most of whom are mystery writers, together near the end, though that session ends quite untraditionally. Things do get sorted out finally in a solution that is satisfying and moderately fair to the reader.

— Reprinted from The MYSTERY FANcier,
       Vol. 12, No. 4, Fall 1990 (slightly revised).


Editorial Comment: Carolyn Hart certainly struck gold when she started this series. There is nothing that mystery lovers like more than reading mysteries about their favorite choice of reading, mysteries. Number 22 in the series, Death Comes Silently, is on the schedule for next year, 2012. Follow the link in the first paragraph for a complete list.