"Intriguing "Home Repair Is Murder" amateur sleuth"

Having left Wall St. behind upon finding her spouse Victor cheating on her, and her son Sam using drugs, Jacobia "Jake" Tiptree divorced her husband and took her son to Eastport, Maine. There she eventually married Wade Sorenson and with her best friend Ellie White buy a beachfront fixer-upper with plans to lease the house especially when the tourists come to New England.

Currently they rent the place out to a coven of amateur witches who Jake believes must have cursed Ellie and her as they seem to always need a repair or two at the most inopportune moments. While a storm rages, Jake, toolkit in hand, arrives at the cottage to make a repair. In the nearby tool shed, Jake finds the corpse of thieving street preacher Eugene Dibble. Everyone had a motive to see Dibble leave town but nobody knows who would go to the extreme of shooting him. After coven member ex-cop Jenna Durrell compromised the crime scene, the others claim they were busy conjuring so heard nothing over the storm. After another incident occurs, with Ellie helping Jake investigates.

The latest "Home Repair Is Murder" amateur sleuth mystery is an intriguing tale due to a strong who-done-it. Jake assumes one of the coven members killed Dibble, but finds no motive beyond that no one wanted the petty thief in town. Besides playing 1823 and dealing with Victor more than ever, Jake is at her tough best even when she and her partner deal with a NAIL BITER life and death crisis. Readers will take immense delight with Jake's investigation so she can further repair and lease her fixer-upper.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted December 15, 2005

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Summary

The New Home Repair Is Homicide mystery—complete with repair tips!

Jacobia "Jake" Tiptree took the dangerous plunge from Wall Street power broker—to homeowner! Now the do-it-yourself enthusiast is about to discover that her own dream house is built on a foundation of murder.

Buying a beachfront fixer-upper to lease out to Eastport, Maine's, burgeoning tourist crowd seems like a good idea to Jake Tiptree and her best friend, Ellie White. But working double-time as landladies to a coven of wannabe witches isn't what they had in mind. And it only gets worse when Jake is called out one stormy night to make a repair—and stumbles on a dead body in the utility shed.

A small-time thief and street preacher with a particularly violent message, the deceased was no favorite of Jake's—nor of anyone else in Eastport. But what's he doing shot to death on Jake's property? Jake's bewitching tenants—including an ex-cop, a con man, and a mute teenage girl—claim to have been too busy conjuring spells to have heard or seen a thing. Then a member of the coven disappears without a trace and Jake doesn't think it's a case of witchcraft—but a kidnapping...or worse.

Scandal, secrets, and a mysterious box buried deep in the foundation of her own home are just the beginning of a mystery that threatens to bring Jake's house—and life—crashing down. Now she and Ellie are racing to find a missing girl who may be the key to it all...or lead them to a killer holding the final nails to their coffins.