Synopses & Reviews
Fresh on the heels of
Killer Stuff, Sharon Fiffer's auspicious debut, antique "picker" Jane Wheel is making a career out of going through old stuff; it seems she can't get enough of the piles of vintage clothing, kitchen utensils, Bakelite buttons and post cards she finds at estate sales across the Chicago area. What this saloon keepers' daughter loves, though, is not the items themselves but the stories they tell about the lives of their owners.
So needless to say Jane's delighted when a Saturday morning estate sale turns up a serendipitous find: a whole room packed full of 1950's saloon ephemera. As luck would have it, she's been planning to redecorate her parents' pub, still run and recently purchased outright by her folks. Piles of Bakelite darts and dice, countless advertisements from long-defunct liquor suppliers, and, most exciting of all, a bunch of old bar games, employed by untold patrons intent on whiling away the tedious moments in between the sips of so long ago. She makes a deal to buy the whole room, and can't wait to get the stuff back to her hometown.
As she's cataloging her find, however, Jane makes a gruesome discovery. Packed between the glassware and bowling trophies and old photographs she's already fallen in love with, she uncovers one highly personal, unusual and creepy collectible that she is sure the saloon keeper would have preferred to have kept to himself. It sure sparks her curiosity about the saloon owners, and when Jane gets curious nothing's going to stop her. Employing her friends Detective Bruce Oh and fellow junkhound Tim Lowry, as well as her erstwhile husband Charley, Jane sets out to lay bare the secrets of long ago, secrets that even people close to her would rather be kept quiet forever. Packed with as much intrigue and suspense as a long-buried chest in your grandmother's attic, Dead Guy's Stuff is a fantastic sophomore effort from acclaimed promising cozy writer Sharon Fiffer.
Synopsis
The Beeler Mystery Series publishes outstanding mysteries by writers most popular with library patrons. Titles selected for the program are not only well written and enjoyable, they also do not contain explicit sex, graphic violence and offensive language. As a result Beeler Mysteries are certain to please all of your library patrons Antique picker Jane Wheel can't get enough of the vintage clothing, kitchen utensils, Bakelite buttons and postcards she finds at estate sales across the Chicago area. She's delighted when she finds a whole room of 1950s saloon ephemera--she'd been planning to redecorate her parents' pub. As she's cataloging her find, Jane makes a gruesome discovery. Joined by her friends Detective Bruce Oh, fellow junkhound Tim Lowry, and her erstwhile husband, Charley, Jane sets out to lay bare the secrets that even people close to her would rather be kept quiet forever.
About the Author
Sharon Fiffer collects buttons, Bakelite, pottery, vintage potholders, keys, locks, and more dead guy's stuff. The author of the Jane Wheel mysteries, including Killer Stuff and The Wrong Stuff, Sharon Fiffer has also co-edited the anthologies Home: American Writers Remember Rooms of Their Own, Body, and Family: American Writers Remember Their Own and written Imagining America.