Dead Level: A Home Repair Is Homicide Mystery [Hardcover]

Jacobia "Jake" Tiptree and her best friend, Ellie White, are heading for a Down East camp belonging to Jake's husband, Eastport harbor pilot Wade Sorenson, when they find a culvert on the remote woods road blocked. That's nothing unusual; the resident beaver often fills in that culvert, and the humans who use the road have to unblock it or have the road wash out. Jake, a former New York City financial advisor, moved to Eastport years ago after divorcing her brain surgeon first husband. Ellie is an Eastport native, wife of local handyman George Valentine and mother of a five-year-old daughter. Jake's only child, Sam, is a grown man of 25 now. But he still struggles with sobriety, all this time after his mother removed him from the temptations of the city where he once was well on his way to an early death from addiction or from the behavior that resulted. So when Sam meets a beautiful woman in the course of his job at the local boatyard, he finds himself reluctant to tell her that he doesn't, can't, drink alcohol. He takes the easy way out...and he winds up bound and gagged inside a motel room, because that beautiful woman and her "brother" (Sam's boat repair customer) aren't exactly what they profess to be. Meanwhile, Jake and Ellie start work on the deck that Jake has bet her husband she can build at his camp without his help. They don't know that a killer, escaped from a Maine prison and supposed to be on his way south, is actually there in the woods with them. Stalking them, and closing in to get rid of two women he hates: Jake Tiptree, whose testimony helped put him behind bars; and Ellie White, who looks uncannily like the woman he murdered. Whom he believes to be his wife, Marianne, come back to life and in need of killing all over again.

In this most recent "Home Repair is Homicide" mystery, author Graves returns to the style that originally hooked me on her heroine. She writes any passage including Jake Tiptree from Jake's viewpoint, in the first person. I am delighted! When she wants to use another character's viewpoint, Graves switches to the third person; and for me that works just fine. I did so miss seeing the story through Jake's eyes, and feeling what Jake was feeling, in the books that wrote her as well as everyone else in the third person.

This is more a thriller or suspense novel than a mystery, and as such it worked fine for me. The already familiar charaters acted as they should, and the newly introduced characters made their own kind of sense by behaving consistently, too. I particularly enjoyed ex-husband Victor Tiptree's continued presence, although Jake certainly did not enjoy it much. Exactly the kind of quirky charm that keeps me reading these books.

--Reviewed by Nina M. Osier, author of 2005 science fiction EPPIE winner "Regs"

In the medium security prison at Lakesmith, Maine Dewey Hooper is doing twenty years for killing his wife Marianne. The deceased's spouse looked exactly like Ellie White, the best friend of former Wall Streeter Jacobia "Jake" Tiptree, whi now lies in Eastport, Maine. Dewy escapes and sets up a false trail to fool the cops while heading to the woods near Eastport.

Jake has been working on an 1823 Federal-style fixer-upper for years, but her husband bet her she could not finish a deck in their isolated cabin within a week. Although that means no plumbing, she and Ellie head to the cabin. Ellie plans to stay overnight before returning to Eastport. Dewey sees and recognizes both women; he believes Marianne returned from the dead to haunt him and Jake testified against him at his trial. He tries various means to kill the females, but they survive and deploy a risky counter plan.

The latest Home Repair Is Homicide mystery (see Knockdown and Crawlspace) is exciting due to the strong determined protagonists who reject fear and despair by refusing to be victims. The story line is told in the first person by Jake and in the third person when Dewey leads, readers know the contrasting thoughts of each while Ellie plays a major role. Though bringing the trio together is a gigantic coincidence over the top of Mount Katahdin, fans will enjoy this fabulous thriller that also includes repair tips.

Harriet Klausner

Once, a long time ago, Graves wrote good books. They were not as well written as now. She is much more polished (but still a long way from the top writers) but now lacks the humor and interest that she drew from her characters. If you have read any of her recent books they jumble into a sameness that, for me, says that she is more interested in getting a book out than in getting out a good book.

I stuck with her with the hope that she would get back to her roots, but only a half way through this book I shifted to skimming it and missed nothing, which is hard to do with a good author.

Several years ago, I even visited Eastport, I liked her books so much. But I am done. Too much formula and not enough of what drew me to the books in the first place.

Whoever wrote that this was bloodless obviously never read the book. Just about everyone ends up in the hospital with gunshots, timbers through their body, burns, hypothermia, cuts, bruises, auto accident injuries, blood bursts, and other general mayhem. Still, they gave it five stars which certainly makes the review suspect.

Another 5 star review has them over Mt Katahdin, which never happens in this book. But then, since she is formulaic, maybe they just confused this book with another one.