THE BOOK OF OLD HOUSES: A Home Repair is Homicide Mystery
Sarah Graves
Bantam
Mystery
ISBN: 9780553804300

Professor Dave DiMaio is on a revenge mission. His good friend, bookseller Horace Robotham, has been murdered. DiMaio brings his .22 revolver as he heads for Eastport, Maine, where he hopes to settle up. There, he finds Jacobia “Jake” Tiptree in her old money pit of a house, impulsively dismantling her ancient bathroom with a sledgehammer. DiMaio knew that Robotham had Jake's book --- the ancient, written-in-blood book that listed all the residents of Jake's house (including Jake). The book has gone missing, and DiMaio suspects he knows who has it and who killed his friend.

Meanwhile, DiMaio asks Jake to hide his gun for him, which she does in a cellar lockbox. He claims he only brought the firearm because he had the jitters, but that doesn't ring true for Jake, who is very concerned about his motives. DiMaio can't stay with Jake (especially since there is no bathroom now). He moves into a motel while asking pointed questions of the townsfolk about one crackpot local named Bert Merkle. DiMaio believes that Merkle, with all his talk of flying saucers and little green men, stole the book and killed Robotham.

Jake and her sidekick, Ellie, are right on DiMaio's trail, hoping to prevent another death while also finding out the truth about Robotham's murder and Jake's missing book. Their urgency is complicated by the fact that DiMaio's gun is now missing. Plus, Jake had agreed long ago to have an enormous, formal tea party for the town-revered Merrie Fargeorge, an ex-schoolteacher who just happens to hate Jake. The party is rapidly looming, even as Jake discovers her claw-foot tub perilously lodged in her staircase. Jake is also concerned about her housekeeper, Bella, who is not reacting well to Jake's father's marriage proposal. And, as always, her worry over Sam, her teenage son newly returned from drug rehab, is ever present.

Jake cannot resist her detective instincts. Along the way, she discovers new suspects. Could the killer/book thief possibly be wannabe-writer Ann Talbert? Sure, Talbert is demanding the book so she can write her "erotic paranormal historical-fiction novel with grippingly suspenseful romantic over-tones and cutting-edge science-fiction subplots, told from the point of view of Mary Magdalene." But her demands could well be a cover-up. On the other hand, teen Jason Riverton (a friend of Merkle) seems suspicious, since he has wallpapered his black-painted bedroom with every article ever printed about Robotham's death. Even if Riverton had nothing to do with the murder, what is his connection with Merkle?

Nancy Drew fans have long implored her not to enter the big creepy house; in the Home Repair is Homicide books, the detective actually lives in that falling-down mansion. Jake is an endearing character in a cast of colorful locals. Her descriptions of home repairs gone awry are downright laugh-out-loud hysterical to anyone who has undergone old house remodeling (she describes turning on the tap in her bathroom, only to have the handles snap off in her hand, "followed by a geyser so forceful, it hosed all the mildew off the places where the blackish stuff had flourished for decades…"). Her ancient book, written in blood, is intriguing, and author Sarah Graves dishes up some late plot twists.

Readers are unlikely to care that the mystery really doesn't rev up until late in the novel and that it takes a bit of a rear seat to the rest of Jake's life; these books are way too much fun to miss out on. New fans will join the rest of us in counting down the days until the next Home Repair is Homicide mystery is released in 2009.

    --- Reviewed by Terry Miller Shannon (terryms2001@yahoo.com)

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