Killer Stuff
A Jane Wheel Mystery
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4.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
In this dynamite series debut, Sharon Fiffer has introduced an engaging and enterprising heroine in Jane Wheel. Recently laid off from her advertising job, separated from her husband Charley, and colliding head-on with a midlife crisis, Jane is trying to make ends meet as an antique "picker" foraging for killer stuff at suburban Chicago's estate sales and auctions, garage sales and flea markets.t
Before long she's addicted to the hunt, spending her Friday nights with the classified ads and a street map, outlining her weekend plan of attack. Jane knows that finding the real treasures is all about being in the right place at the right time.
But just as she's settling in to her new routine, Jane finds herself in just the wrong place and at quite the wrong time: stumbling over her neighbor Sandy's dead body. Soon she's the prime suspect. After all, everyone on the block seems to have seen her kissing Sandy's husband at a recent dinner party. Leaning on her best friend Tim, a flower shop owner and fellow junk hound, as well as Evanston police detective Bruce Oh, Jane has no choice but to hunt for the truth. Hopefully her knack for uncovering valuables in the least likely of places will extend to discovering clues as well. Like the vintage postcards, Bakelite buttons, and Fulper lamps that she dreams of finding, to Jane the truth just might be priceless.
Sharon Fiffer's mystery debut is a fabulously entertaining read and an intriguing puzzle featuring a heroine that's a dynamic mix of Miss Marple, Kinsey Millhone, and Leigh and Leslie Keno.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
After making their way through this engaging debut mystery, readers will be scrounging through their attics looking for neglected treasures of all kinds. Jane Wheel, recently laid off from her PR job and separated from her professor husband, is making ends meet by foraging through garage and estate sales, flea markets and the odd auction in search of "killer stuff." Jane often borrows her neighbor Sandy's Suburban so she can haul her finds home, but after one trip she returns to find Sandy dead. Since too many people caught Jane sharing a furtive kiss with Sandy's husband at a dinner party months before, she fears the neighbors will consider her the prime suspect in the murder. Luckily, Chicago homicide detective Bruce Oh seems to have an open mind, and when Jane discovers a second corpse, as well as a peculiar object used in the murder, Oh is willing to let Jane employ her special expertise in the sleuthing. Aided by best friend Tim, a gay antiques dealer, Jane persists in her dual hunts for the killer and for overlooked bargains. Jane's casual attitude toward her estrangement from her husband might be off-putting to some, but her addiction to Bakelite and other unusual relics of the American past will endear her to many cozy readers, especially those who are fans of TV's Antiques Roadshow. The publisher would have done better to create a dust jacket that makes this connection clear, however; the bland design of what appear to be two rings, one large, one small, certainly won't help.
