The Fixer Upper »

Mary Kay Andrews has been delighting critics and readers for years with a series of funny, breezy mysteries, which are quite different from the more hard-boiled detective novels of a certain Kathy Hogan Trocheck. Of course, as most fans of Andrews and Trocheck know, they are one-and-the-same.

After her boss is caught in a political scandal, fledgling Washington lobbyist Dempsey Jo Killebrew is left broke, unemployed, and homeless. out of options, she reluctantly accepts her father's offer to help turn birdsong—the fading Victorian mansion he recently inherited in Guthrie, Georgia—into a real estate cash cow. but birdsong turns out to be a moldering Pepto-bismol-pink dump with duct-taped windows, a driveway full of junk, and a grumpy distant relation who's claiming squatter's rights. Stuck in a tiny town where everyone seems to know her business, Dempsey grits her teeth and rolls up her sleeves, and begins her journey back to the last place she ever expected: home.

Publishers Weekly

Andrews's latest Southern charmer begins with junior lobbyist Dempsey Jo Killebrew in the crosshairs of a political bribery investigation. Suddenly unemployed and the victim of a sleazy smear campaign by her former boss, Dempsey decides to take up her father's offer of flipping a recently inherited family home in Guthrie, Ga. As it turns out, the house needs much more than a fresh coat of paint, and Dempsey's ornery cousin and her dog are squatting there. So it is that the formerly glamorous Dempsey steps into her dead uncle's overalls and chips her manicured nails as she scrubs and sands her way through fixing up the house, quickly finding a renovation groove, fitting in with the locals and embarking on a romance. Meanwhile, the FBI and a pesky reporter come asking questions about the bribery accusations. This authentic tale of cleaning up life's messes and self-discovery is bright, engaging and thoughtful, enlivened by Andrews's quirky characters and lovely backwoods setting. (July)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.