The Body in the Casket: A Faith Fairchild Mystery

When Max Dane, a once-famous Broadway producer, hires Faith Fairchild to cater a birthday bash, she thinks it is all due to her catering skills. When she arrives at his beautiful historic home, she is surprised to learn that Dane is more interested in her sleuthing skills. Having received a casket from an anonymous sender, Dane wants Faith to keep her eyes open during his birthday weekend. The guests, former members of his productions, might have reasons to want him dead.

While Faith is tending to the party planning, husband Tom is caught up in a town-planning issue, and her catering partner’s daughter, Samantha, is dealing with a myriad of problems involving boyfriends, a new job, and a grandmother with a new beau. The side stories seemed to take on a life of their own, and while they were not uninteresting, they did seem to compete with the mystery itself. So, I was, therefore, a little disappointed in this book, which appeared short on mystery and had an ending that I didn’t find as satisfying as I had anticipated.