Crawlspace by Sarah Graves

(A Home Repair is Homicide Mystery).

Sarah Graves has created a very compelling set of characters in her series about Jake Tiptree, once a financial expert in New York, who then moved to Eastport, Maine to rebuild her life, along with her young son Sam. Jake occupies herself fixing up her old 1800s era house and has settled into the community, making friends and remarrying. Her best friend Ellie lives next door with her husband and daughter. Jake has married a wonderful man who works as a harbor pilot. Jake's father reappeared in her life several years ago and has recently married her housekeeper, Bella, who is a tough woman with a tender heart.

The most recent book, Crawlspace, focuses on Sam--who is now a young man. Jake is working on more home repair projects and begins to get strange threatening phone calls. In the meantime, a pair of visitors arrive in town: true crime writers who want to interview people about the recent murder of a wealthy woman. Carolyn is a beautiful, narcisstic young woman who has taken all of the credit for the hard work done by both herself and her assistant, Chip. They enjoy a meal at a restaurant and then have a drink at a bar. However, something goes wrong, and as they leave the bar, Chip goes ahead to get the car--and someone grabs Carolyn.

When she doesn't return to the hotel, Chip reports her missing to the police. Soon it becomes clear that Sam has also gone missing--he worked on the docks that night but never made it home. Chip sees Jake and the reader then learns of a connection in their past: Chip was sort of a big brother to Sam when they all lived in New York. Now Chip and Jake come to the same conclusion--Sam saw something down on the docks, and whoever kidnapped Carolyn probably also kidnapped Sam. It turns out that the writers had visited the bar owned by a man whose wife had just been murdered--the subject of their next book. Two local men (brothers) had married two wealthy sisters: now, both women were dead, and one of the brothers had mysteriously disappeared overboard on his lobster boat and was presumed dead. But was he dead?

Crawlspace, as many of her previous books, is tremendously difficult to put down; I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. You can find it on the New fiction shelf; I read the Large print version.



c Waterloo Public Library 2009