cover image DEAD GUY'S STUFF

DEAD GUY'S STUFF

Sharon Sloan Fiffer, . . St. Martin's Minotaur, $24.95 (320pp) ISBN 978-0-312-27822-9

In Fiffer's second clever cozy after Killer Stuff (2001), Jane Wheel, ex-advertising person and dedicated, self-supporting "picker," attends garage and yard sales to buy items on antique dealers' want lists and items for her own stock of buttons, old photographs, Bakelite jewelry and trimmings, among other mid-20th-century collectibles. Jane has a mind like a yard sale, in which the stuff has been loosely organized, bagged or boxed, and opened to the public. A large part of the book's appeal lies in watching how this mind operates as Jane interacts with her inn-owning parents in Kankakee, Ill., her "nearly estranged" husband, 12-year-old son, best friend (a gay Evanston antiques dealer) and a retired Chicago police detective. After discovering a severed finger in a jar, our heroine suspects that several deaths attributed to natural causes really were murders. As Jane flits about, her frequent use of her car phone with call waiting results in a hilarious set of eight almost simultaneous dialogues. Fiffer's inventories of household goods and papers may have nothing to do with the crimes, but from them readers will gain an understanding of the urges of her well-developed, entertaining characters to save such things. Pack rats and fans of lighter mystery fare should be perfectly satisfied. (Oct. 14)

Forecast:While an improvement over the art for Killer Stuff, this book's jacket art—depicting poker chips, playing cards, dice, among other casino clutter—would seem better suited to a title on gambling, and won't do much to push sales.