Crawlspace

November 23, 2009
In Graves's tepid 13th Home Repair Is Homicide mystery (after 2008's A Face at the Window
), true-crime writer Carolyn Rathbone and her unhappy assistant, Chip Hahn, arrive in Eastport, Maine, to research Randy Dodd, a psycho who faked his own death six years earlier after Cordelia Lang Dodd, Randy's wealthy wife, took a fatal fall down the stairs. Now Randy has returned to Eastport after the stabbing murder of Anne Dodd, the wife of his brother, Roger, and Cordelia's sister. Did Randy kill Anne, as the blubbering Roger claims? Soon after kidnapping snoopy Carolyn, a cosmetically altered Randy nabs Sam, series heroine Jake Tiptree's recovering alcoholic son, who's an unlucky witness. Chip, who once befriended Sam, joins sleuthing forces with police chief Bob Arnold, a frantic Jake, and others in an installment marred by a lack of surprises and boring, over-the-top villains, though redeemed in part by an exciting resolution.