Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Savannah Blues

By Mary Kay Andrews

Weezie Foley doesn't have it so good. Recently divorced, the judge awarded her the carriage house located in back of the house in which she used to live with her now ex-husband. He got the main house and she got what was basically the garage. And to make matters worse, the other woman promptly moved in with the hubby. So not only did Weezie get gypped  in the divorce settlement, she also has to put up with the girl friend's constant complaints about Weezie and her dog.
Weezie earns her living as a "picker." Not of fruit or vegetables, but of antiques. She goes around to garage sales and estate sales and buys items to resell. It's not a great living, but she gets by. Her dream is to turn her carriage house into an antiques store but that requires cash she doesn't have. All she needs is one big antiques score and she thinks she has found it at an estate sale. An old cupboard could be worth many thousands if she can only beat all the other pickers and dealers to the item. She sneaks into the estate one night just to scope the place out but she finds her husband's girlfriend in an upstairs closet, shot to death. And of course the police think Weezie is the prime suspect.

This was an OK read, kind of a murder mystery slash romance. Weezie reconnects with a boy she knew in high school, but their relationship becomes rocky when he thinks she is carrying a torch for her ex. The on-again, off-again romance was kind of boring and repetitive. The killer turned out to be a very minor character. And the ex-husband who had been such a placid spouse through ten years of marriage suddenly and implausibly turned into a drunken wife-beater.  Those things rather spoiled it for me. Plus it was too long.

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