Mallets Aforethought

Jacobia Tiptree and her friend Ellie have volunteered to restore one of Eastport's Victorian residences to its previous grandeur, but when they discover a desicated corpse underneath a floorboard and then a fresher corpse beside the first, their troubles require more than carpentry skills. Lindsay Ellison does good character voices, but her reading is erratic. She doesn't engage the listener in the story because her reading is bumpy and doesn't flow. Worst of all, though, is her attempt at a Downeast Maine accent. It is downright bad. Perhaps it would have been better to hire someone who is familiar with the sounds of the Northeast, rather than someone who simply offers a broad "a" every now and then. J.P. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine

December 22, 2003
While Jacobia "Jake" Tiptree met with accidents galore in last year's outing, Unhinged
, she faces more realistic challenges as wife, mother and amateur sleuth in this, the seventh page-turner in Graves's innovative cozy series. Jake, who's been restoring her own 1823 Federal home, joins her pregnant friend Ellie White in the community effort to fix up the historic Harlequin House in Eastport, Maine, once owned by an ancestor of Ellie's. Unable to resist opening a hidden door in the parlor that they unearthed after stripping wallpaper, they're horrified to discover not only the mummified body of a woman from the 1920s but also the corpse of the local historical society president and "Eastport's most irascible real-estate mogul," Hector Gosling. When Ellie's husband, George, is arrested for Gosling's murder, Jake and Ellie, who's hampered by the imminent birth of her baby, set out to prove George's innocence. As carefully and methodically as she strips the years of paint from the old door in her house, Jake peels back the layers of deception that mask the real killer. Readers will relish the author's evocative descriptions of small-town Maine, strong characters whose relationships evolve, sense of humor and, of course, helpful home-repair hints.