Deborah Donnelly, Bride and Doom

Bride and Doom

Deborah Donnelly

Dell, January 2007, $6.99, 288 pp.

ISBN 0440242857

Wedding planner Carnegie Kincaid is thrilled to be engaged to reporter Aaron Gold, but at the moment she is more involved with the McKinny/Gutierrez wedding. The groom is a player for the Seattle Navigators, and just broke the record for home runs in a single season; the bride is the lead singer in the Goth rock group Honey Hel and the Fiends. The Navigators management is paying for all the wedding festivities, and Carnegie is thrilled to be up close and personal with her teen-age crush Rob Harmon.

At the engagement party Boris, renowned floral designer, gets into a fight with vicious sports journalist Digger Duvall when he insults Carnegie. Later she finds Boris standing over the dead and bloody body of Digger, a bloody baseball bat in his hands. The police arrest him, but Carnegie knows he is innocent, and since his own lawyer thinks he is guilty she starts sleuthing trying to clear his name. Someone doesn't want her involved, as her new house is broken into and she is mugged, but that just makes her more determined to find the killer, a decision that almost gets her killed.

It is always fun to see the craziness that is involved in preparing for someone else's wedding, but add in an odd murder and amateur sleuthing to the mix and readers will have a totally entertaining mystery drama to sink their teeth into. Deborah Donnelly can always be counted on to write a wonderful amateur sleuth tale that focuses on a protagonist who is an average person, who happens to like solving murder investigations. She's unique, independent and totally delightful, as she charms the audience who root for her every step of the way.