Dead Days of Summer, by Carolyn G. Hart

It doesn't look good for Max Darling. In this latest in the "Death on Demand" series, mystery bookstore owner Annies Laurence Darling's husband is the prime--only, really--suspect in the murder of a woman with whom it seems he must have been involved. But Max doesn't remember anything: not leaving the seedy bar with her, not getting blood all over his clothing, not abandoning his car. Annie and her friends, fierecely defending his innocence even as evidence against him mounts, set out to prove his innocence by finding the real killer. Was it the husband of the woman's employer? Or the fiance of her employer's daughter? Or the employer's neighbor? The brutality of the murder with a tire iron surely points to a man. Hart does a fine job of illustrating the loyalty of this tightly-bonded group of friends. The mood is a little more desperate than some of the series but still full of Hart.