Desert Summer: A Claire Gray Mystery

by Michael Craft and Alex Brown

The first year in academia ends with a bang-up summer session for theater-director-turned-professor Claire Gray with a new production, a new love, and a dead body. Claire, a former Broadway director and now head of the Theater Department of Desert Arts College in Palm Springs, is running her summer workshop for the first time. The play she will direct is a staged version of the film Rebecca, and playing the female lead is Paige Yeats, daughter of...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312334230
• ISBN13: 9780312334239
• Release Date: August 2005
• Publisher: Minotaur Books
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.2" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

Another Craft Success!

Those who are fans of Michael Craft's novels (and those who will make this their first read) will not be disappointed in this Claire Gray installment! As is his custom, the author makes us feel at home with familiar venues and characters. Who cannot admire Claire's keen sleuthful instincts? Who cannot cease to be entertained by the outrageous Kiki? Who cannot cheer the relationship between Grant and Kane? Ah, but this is a mystery novel, after all! The list of potential who-done-it suspects is populated with typical Craft skill. My guess changed at least twice until the totally disarming surprise ending! A most enjoyable and easy read! I look forward to Michael's next!

A great read - no matter what season

An easy read - finished in one day as I sat on the couch with a cat on my lap! I love the comparisons to "Rebecca" in the plot, and while I am only passingly familiar with that storyline, could understand completely how everything went together. As an acting teacher, I especially enjoyed all Claire's references to directing and theatre. Wonderful characterizations, and as this is the fourth in the series, felt like I was visiting old friends. Liked the descriptions of familiar haunts in Palm Springs - and how many adjectives can Craft come up with to describe "hot weather"?!! The plot kept me guessing until the end with an unusual twist. Looking forward to catching up on other series by this author.

Seasonal Glow

The fourth Claire Grey murder mystery,Desert Summer, is the best so far in this superb series by Michael Craft. It's a richly mounted novel that glows on several levels:vivid descriptions of the Palm Springs desert,a razor sharp mystery solved by a clue in the play Rebecca,deft characterizations, and most importantly the promise of new love and fulfillment for Claire. This series is flat out excellent and I for one eagerly await the next installment.

4th "Claire" Mystery the Best Yet!

In the fourth (and, in my opinion, best) mystery in this series, Craft's Claire Gray again stumbles across a murder, this time of the vindictive ex-wife of her friend and employer at the Desert Arts College, billionaire D. Glen Yeats. Circumstances implicate Yeats as the murderer, a possibility Claire finds logical but hopes her intuition is correct as deeming it unlikely. Other possible suspects include Yeat's daughter Paige, who expressed open hostility toward her former step mother and was seen en route to see her shortly before she was found dead, as well as the decedent's own son, a spoiled playboy who had financial problems and would be the sole beneficiary of her will. As in the past, Claire teams unofficially with Larry Knohl, Palm Springs police detective and brother of her good friend Grant, in trying to sort out the facts of the case, ironically now urged on by Yeats, who discouraged his employee from becoming involved in police business ... that is until it was his rich behind that was on the line! This installment in the series also fleshes out several of the supporting characters, including Claire's oldest friend Kiki (who also is Glenn update his wardrobe), Grant and his younger boyfriend Kane (who are planning a civil union ceremony), Thad Quatrain (theatre student of Claire's, who is the nephew of Mark Manning, the star of Craft's just-concluded other series of mystery novels), and Detective Knohl, who is going through some marital problems. The pace and suspense of the mystery is Hitchcock-ish, not surprising when Claire and other characters draw parallels between the murder and the play "Rebecca", which Hitchcock filmed and which her students are currently studying in their summer workshop. Though over 250 pages, I went through the book in a bit over a day, it is that much of a "page turner"!