Lucky Stuff

July 2, 2012
In Fiffer’s charming if lightweight eighth Jane Wheel mystery (after 2011’s Backstage Stuff), antiques picker Jane decides it’s time for a new life, now that her son has gone to boarding school. After putting her Evanston, Ill., house on the market, Jane sends her treasured curios to her friend, Tim Lowry, for safe storage in her hometown, Kankakee, Ill., and heads there for a brief visit. She finds the town has been turned upside down by comedian Lucky Miller, there with a production crew to film a roast for his comeback. Jane’s mom and dad, who run the EZ Way Inn, are in the thick of all the hoopla. Then, Jane learns that Lucky is looking for much more than a comeback, and a death from peanuts casts a pall over the proceedings. Leave it to sleuth Jane to figure out what’s going on by the time of the climactic bowling tournament. Agent: Gail Hochman, Brandt & Hochman Literary.