From Publishers Weekly
Holtzer crafts an engaging debut from a usually harmless suburban staple: garage sales. On a Saturday morning in Michigan, members of the Ann Arbor Antiques Association are making the rounds of local garage sales when disliked dealer Joanna Westlake is found fatally bludgeoned. Fellow dealer Joyce McDonald and her friend, computer consultant Anneke Haagen, hear Joanna whisper her last words: "The Jap?" Worried that the phrase might incriminate fellow member Ellen Nakamura, the group asks Anneke, who has consulted at the police department, to follow Lt. Karl Genesco's investigation. While police suspect that Joanna was murdered for something valuable she might have bought at a sale, the subsequent murder of a talented art student, lover of another regular on the garage sale circuit, suggests other possible motives to Anneke, an attractive and independent woman in her 40s. She mentions her speculations to Genesko, who asks her to construct a computer program to sort out suspects and movements, a job complicated by the murder of another dealer. Working in tandem, Anneke and Genesko, a former Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker, solve the mysteries in this refreshing mix of computer lore, antiques trivia, romance and murder, winner of the publisher's 1993 Malice Domestic contest.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Anyone who loves garage sales, flea markets, and antique marts will love this mystery set in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Anneke Haagen, owner of a computer consulting business, decides to spend a Saturday morning with her friend Sheila, a local antique/collectibles dealer, when she makes the rounds of spring garage sales in quest of bargains and the "Big Score"--the diamond priced as rhinestone. Anneke is pleased when she discovers an art deco statuette at a give-away price but is less than thrilled when she and Sheila discover the body of Ellen, local collector who has been bludgeoned to death with a rock. Anneke, known to the local police through her computing work for the department, is asked by Ellen's friends to help out with the investigation. Two more, seemingly unrelated, murders occur before the annual antiques fair provides Anneke with the information necessary to pull the pieces together. With a clever plot and an excellent depiction of life in a large university town, this is an entertaining read with series potential. Look for a sequel.
Stuart Miller
