Triple Witch (Home Repair Is Homicide Series #2) »

Sarah Graves lives with her husband in Eastport, Maine, where her mystery novels are set. She is currently working on her twelfth Home Repair Is Homicide novel.

Jacobia Tiptree saved her sanity—and her son, Sam—the day she abandoned Wall Street for the seacoast village of Eastport, Maine. In her new home, a charmingly dialpidated fixer-upper, she looks forward to repairing old radiators and restoring antique shutter for years to come. But Jake's hopes of serenity are dashed when tiny Eastport erupts in a crime wave.

Hometown bad boy Kenny Mumford—old flame of Jake's best fiend and fellow sleuth, Ellie White—is the first victim. When his corpse washes up on the beach at Prince's Cove, all evidence points to a drowning...except the bullet hole in his forehead.

When bodies begin littering the Maine scenery, Jake and Ellie learn that the ante on Kenny's small-town antics has been upped. Add a pair of unwelcome arrivlas—Jake's ex-husband, and an unscrupulous New York ex-money mogul—and you've got a blueprint for more deadly danger than one house can hold.

Publishers Weekly

A crime wave is sweeping the quiet island town of Eastport, Maine. After discovering the dead body of Kenny Mumford, the town's petty thief and ne'er-do-well, Jacobia "Jake" Tiptree and her best friend, Ellie White, set out to catch the killer. Meanwhile, Jake's attempts to start a new life after quitting her job on Wall Street and moving to Eastport with her teenage son, Sam, are thwarted as two creeps from her past show up: her philandering ex-husband, Victor, and Baxter Willoughby, a crooked stockbroker from New York whom Jake helped put in prison. Between repair jobs on the old house she's renovating and trying to keep Victor from moving in next door, Jake comes across two more bodies and evidence of drug dealing and smuggling. Graves (The Dead Cat Bounce) affectionately creates believable characters (with the exception of cardboard cutout Willoughby), who lend depth and warm humor to the story. While it's not hard to figure out who's behind the mayhem, and the resolution to the mystery fails to thrill, the cozy details of small-town life and home repair make for an enjoyable read. (June) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.