Billionaire Roger Harden is having a dinner party. He’s invited eight of his friends and colleagues to his private island for a meal and an important announcement. Harden, while very successful, is a bit eccentric as his guests are well aware. Harden changes into his customary dinner suit while his guests gather around the dining table.
Psychologist Julie West is on her way to the party. She’s running late, which she knows will anger her host. She and the minister, the one other guest waiting to take the boat when she arrived, squeak in at the last moment. The room becomes silent – another of Roger’s eccentric demands – awaiting the host’s entrance. Only, there is no entrance. Just then a scream is heard and the dinner party rushes to find the source. What they find is shocking – Roger Harden is dead.
The phones are dead, and the tide is too high to leave the island. What should be done? Julie and her boat-ride companion, having been the two last guests to arrive and having had no time to murder Harden, begin questioning the other dinner party guests. As events unravel, the truth begins to unfold. Roger Harden isn’t as loved as everyone believed. The question is, who didn’t love him enough to kill him?
Author Cecil Murphey is known for his more than one hundred published books, of which seventeen are fiction. Everybody Loved Roger Harden is an enjoyable, fast-paced read. Murphey weaves in a message of faith, despite the mysterious circumstances. I was impressed by the twists and turns that I didn’t see coming. The story is entertaining and keeps up the suspenseful pace until the end.
