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BRIDE AND DOOM is the sixth installment in Deborah Donnelly's series featuring Seattle-based wedding planner Carnegie Kincaid. This time around, Carnegie is trying to organize not one, but two weddings, one of which happens to be her own. Carnegie is assisting another local wedding coordinator with a high-profile ceremony for sexy Goth rocker Rose McKinney – known to her fans as Honeysuckle Hell – and Seattle home run king Gordo Guttierez. Murder strikes at their engagement party, when little-loved sports reporter Digger Duvall is bludgeoned with a baseball bat. Carnegie's favorite florist, Boris the Mad Russian, is found standing over the body with bat in hand. The case appears to be open and shut, but Carnegie believes in her friend's innocence and goes to bat for him. Determined to clear him, Carnegie sets out to identify the real killer, despite the objections of her fiancé, reporter and newly-minted sports nut Aaron Gold. With baseball, an obsessive guitarist and one explosive secret threatening Carnegie's safety, this wedding planner needs a new plan before the bride winds up the next victim. Carnegie is a well-meaning if fallible heroine, and her coterie of comrades makes for an entertaining ensemble cast. Thrown into the mix is Carnegie's mom and her free-spirited fiancé Owen, and Carnegie has to deal with disappointment when they confess they're eloping instead of having Carnegie plan their wedding. She takes everything in stride, however, and Donnelly does a good job of portraying the mother-daughter relationship with the right blend of realism and sincerity, without the stereotypical drama usually associated with his dynamic. The addition of Owen's daughters Kimmie and Dree – whom Carnegie not so affectionately refers to as "the Bitch Sisters" – are a colorful contrast to Carnegie's temperate nature. When Aaron encourages Dree's offer that she and Kimmie serve as bridesmaids for Aaron and Carnegie's wedding, Carnegie nearly has his head. Between worrying about making sure Rose and Gordo's wedding goes smoothly and trying to plan her own, the last thing she needs is the tension of having her future evil stepsisters involved. After she uncovers the identity of the real killer and justice is served, Aaron and Carnegie come up with the most logical plan for their own happy ending. The mystery of who killed Digger Duvall is the prevalent theme of the book, of course, and Carnegie embarks on her quest to find the killer with determination and discretion, her list of suspects growing as she discovers a potentially career-breaking secret in the notebooks of the murdered reporter. Her tenacity pays off, and through a series of nerve-jolting close calls, learns more about the game and its players than she probably wants to. This charming mystery is chock full of interesting characters, intriguing plot twists and imminent danger. Donnelly coaxes the suspense out of every scene with a style that is both graceful and refreshing. Every page moves the plot along at a brisk but easy pace, and although this is part of a series, the character development is sufficient that I didn't feel like I'd missed anything. For a fairly light read, BRIDE AND DOOM has enough substance to satisfy.
Reviewed by J. B. Thompson, March 2007
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