DEAD DAYS OF SUMMER

Max Darling is jailed for murder, and his wife Annie (Death of the Party, 2005, etc.) goes undercover to prove his innocence.

When her investigator husband fails to come home one night, his wife, Death on Demand bookseller Annie Darling, frantically calls her mystery-loving confidants to help find him. But it’s the police who discover Max dirty, disorientated and clearly the prime suspect in the murder of sexy Vanessa Taylor. Max claims Vanessa hired him to find her brother, last seen in a seedy bar. But once they got there, Max was drugged. Now he has no recollection why his car, complete with bloody tire iron, would be found at the murder scene. While Max languishes in jail, Annie, pretending to be sent by Vanessa’s sister to pack her belongings, neatly inserts herself into the home of Vanessa’s wealthy employers, Lillian and Jon Dodd. She soon learns that Vanessa helped set up Max, unaware that the stratagem was a ploy to get rid of her before she caused trouble for one of three men: seemingly doting husband Jon Dodd; Kyle Curtis, brooding fiancé of Lillian’s daughter Heather; and next-door neighbor Sam Golden, married to a jealous alcoholic. Annie puts her life on the line to find the cold-hearted killer.

The Darlings don’t work as a Tommy and Tuppence duo this time, but Annie’s fans will enjoy her moxie as she goes it alone.