Charade by Sandra Brown

Charade opens with a series of deadly accidents: A jealous husband murders a cheating wife; a young man drowns in a car accident, another in a motorcycle crash; an old lady falls; a man is killed in a chainsaw accident. Some of these hapless souls are the recipients of heart transplants – some are heart donors.

A beautiful soap opera star, Cat, is stricken with heart failure and after receiving a donor heart, changes her life to one of helping homeless children. The who-done-it is off and running when she determines that she, too, is a target because of her donor heart. Who’s trying to kill Cat? Why? Thus is the thrust!

Liked: There are plenty of potential bad guys, which makes this a fun guessing game throughout the story. The author does a terrific job presenting details confirming the guilt of a character, then throws a curve. The reader will enjoy some creative twists.

Didn’t Like: There is also a bit of eye-rolling – some stuff just to obviously absurd. Also, there are several gratuitous sex scenes that  add nothing to the story and should have been fade-to-black. *Sigh-fast-forward.*

If you can get past some campy dialogue and wet-panty silliness, the mystery is a good one.