The Coincidence Fairy Puts on a Nail Apron
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Author: Sarah Graves
Title: Dead Level Genre: mystery Jacobia “Jake” Tiptree and her BFF Ellie White took off for the lake cottage, Ellie along for the ride and Jake fully intending to complete the new deck she was constructing on the building’s rear. She’d bet husband #2 a Benjamin she could finish this week, and nothing was gonna keep her from collecting. Well, at least that’s what she thought… Dewey Hooper, the wife-beating murderer her testimony had put away seven years back had escaped from the local prison, but he had obviously headed for the big city to lose himself in the crowds. Or so she thought – turned out Dewey was just around the corner… It probably would’ve been fine, except that they just happened to wash out the culvert in the road to the cottage. That probably would’ve been no problem, except that her son just happened to get tangled up with some grifters and wound up hog-tied in a cheap motel room. That probably wouldn’t have been a problem except that when her father and stepmother got spooked about her safety and headed out to the lake, they swerved to miss a deer and hit a tree. That would’ve only been a problem if Jake’s husband hadn’t… awww, heck, you know there will be four or five more “just-happened-to’s” in that string, and I’ve gotten mighty tired of them. Suffice it to saw that the Coincidence Fairy most certainly put in for a couple of days’ comp time after finishing Sarah Graves’ Dead Level: A Home Repair is Homicide Mystery. I’m not a fan of “cozy” mysteries; and rarely even consider reading any of the flower-shop or kitchen or bakery types. Still, well-written cozies (I’m not cynical enough [yet] to say that’s an oxymoronic description) should be acceptable: there’s nothing wrong with mysteries in which no one brains anyone with a tire iron, carves out body parts for trophies or blows holes in someone with an RPG. And given that I’m somewhat of a “home-repair guy” myself, I thought this brand of coziness might be right up my alley. After all, every chapter begins with a “Tiptree Tip” about some aspect of home repair. Well, I didn’t learn anything new from the tips, which are all pretty elementary (no points off for that, since I suppose the intended audience is a lot more clueless than yours truly about home repair). I did, however, learn that Graves isn’t good with math – she describes the cottage as “a sixty-by-eighty foot post and beam building with a sharply-peaked roof, shingled outside and pine-paneled inside… The main floor was one big room with a woodstove dead center…” Ummm… better be a BIG woodstove: a 60- x 80-foot building is almost as big as a high-school gymnasium (a high-school basketball court is 50’ x 84’). I also learned that she’s probably not that good at home repair: Jake intends to nail the deck boards to the joists because she “[doesn’t] like the pockmarks the nail gun [makes].” First, you can dial down the pressure on a nailgun to avoid “pockmarks,” and second, you put down deck flooring with screws. Oh, and a jigsaw? It’s not “shaped like a power drill”: maybe she’s thinking of a reciprocating saw? All quibbling about building trades aside, just what the heck is going on with this book? One family undergoes three catastrophes simultaneously – Mom gets trapped by a madman, Grandpa slams the pickup into a tree, and Son gets hoodwinked by a pair of con artists. That’s just way too much disbelief to suspend for one 250-page book. And hovering over it all is the ghost of dead husband #1? Blechhh. No thanks; I’ll pass – and I could not care less that it’s volume twelve in the “Home Repair…” series. all content copyright © 2014 by scmrak
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