I seem to be on mystery roll this week! This is one of Sarah Graves' "Home Repair is Homicide" series, starring Jacobia "Jake" Tiptree, a former Manhattan financial manager transplanted to Eastport, Maine. She moved to Maine to help her drug-addicted teenage son, Sam, straighten out, leaving her career and her ex-husband Victor, a brain surgeon, behind. Eventually Victor, finally accepting his son's problem, also moves to Maine and opens a state of the art hospital. Jake, in the meantime, is happily married to Wade, has Sam on the right track, and has embarked on a new career as a home renovator with her friend Ellie.
Unlike most cozy heroines. Jake is not all that innocent. Her father is a 60's radical on the lam and she apparently was involved in providing financial advice for some rather shady characters back in the Big Apple before her move to the seacoast. Some of these associations come back to haunt her in the novel, which revolves around the renovation of Harlequin House, the former home of Ellie's Great Uncle Chester. Chester disappeared years ago in disgrace, apparently responsible for the murders of three young woman and possibly linked to the disappearance of a socialite. Jake and Ellie, who is 9 months pregant, discover the socialite's body in a sealed room along with the body of an unscrupulous local businessman and soon Ellie's husband George is a prime suspect in the crime. Of course Jake manages to solve both a modern mystery and the one that has shrouded Harlequin House and Uncle Chester for decades. Fans of home repair will enjoy this one and may even learn about some new tools and techniques for spiffing up your own home. I did!
No comments:
Post a Comment