Death by Surprise

September 2, 2013
In the new introduction to this Carolyn Hart classic, the author admits that as a young teen she “devoured hard-boiled private eye books.” She goes on to explain that the present title, first published in 1983, “is as near that genre as I have ever come.” Attorney K.C. Carlisle, a self-described liberal who practices in La Luz, Calif., gets pulled into a family drama when an unscrupulous freelance writer tries to blackmail her wealthy kin. All the Carlisles have deep, dark secrets—K.C. herself, her mother, two brothers, and two cousins, not to mention her late, sainted father, a judge. The premise strains credulity, as does the blackmailer being stupid enough to invite the victims to come one at a time to her apartment. Still, K.C. does a decent job investigating the case and putting the pieces together. When a potential love interest says to her, “You’ve slept around some,” and she shrugs, the reader is likely to laugh out loud. Hard-boiled? Not so much.