Mystery Playground Recommends: Carolyn Hart

In our latest installment of the Mystery Playground Recommends series, where a member of our Mystery Playground team chooses an author whose work they would recommend as a body of work, Kerry Hammond is here to tell us how much she loves to read Carolyn Hart.

Carolyn Hart is the author of 58 novels. She writes traditional mysteries for readers who prefer a whodunit without all of the violence and gore. In addition to several standalone novels, Hart has written three very difference series. Her Henrie O books feature a 70 something retired news reporter and in her Bailey Ruth Raeburn series her protagonist is the ghost of woman who returns to earth as an emissary from Heaven’s Department of Good Intentions.  

The third and by far my favorite is Hart’s Death on Demand series, which follows Annie Laurance Darling, owner of Death on Demand book store on the island of Broward’s Rock, South Carolina. Annie and her husband Max (spoiler alert, they’re not yet married in the first book) find more than their fair share of murders to solve in their small island community. The books are great reads, the characters are well written and interesting, and the mysteries are always a great puzzle to try and solve. The first book in the series was written in 1987 and is called Death on Demand.

There are 27 books in this series, more than enough to keep any reader busy for the foreseeable future. The series is still going strong and the latest book, Walking on My Grave was just published in 2017. As an added bonus, true mystery fans will also get a kick out of the fact that Hart mentions other mystery authors in her series. Customers are always approaching Annie at Death on Demand to get recommendations, and Hart gives a shout out to lots of great mysteries and authors in her books. It’s a good idea to have a pen and paper handy to jot down titles to add to your TBR pile.