What a thrill it was to learn last week that I was related to a mystery writer!!! I ran out to get her books and started with this one, the first. It's a great mystery, good plot, good characters and some really wonderful phrases sprinkled throughout. (reviewed in 1996) ( )

This is the first book in the mystery series starring Anneke Haagan. She's a small business owner in Ann Arbor, MI, whose company's probably what today we'd call a 'computer consulting' company. She employs college students from the college down the road (one you may have heard of Michigan), and does a lot of different programming stuff including for the police. That fact is one of the reasons she gets dragged fully into the mystery in this book.

That and the fact that she's one of the people who finds the first almost dead body. Her friend Joyce, an antique dealer, takes her on one of her weekend garage sale trips (to visit many, many sales), and on their way to one of the last ones is when they find one of the less liked garage sale followers (not all are dealers).

It's a really interesting look into not just the mystery, but also into antiques. I'm not sure about the accuracy, but within the story's framework, everything made sense.

I also really liked the characters. They were all pretty unique characters with messy crazy back stories and in some cases even crazier husbands and families.

And then there was Karl, a Lt. for the police, and in charge of the murder investigation. He's a former Pittsburg Steelers and Michigan linebacker turned police officer. And an interesting character that sort of grew on me as he grew on Anneke as well.

Finally there was a subplot that I didn't love, but have to admit fit very well in the narrative. Dennis, an Ex of Anneke's who's sorta trying to become an Un-Ex. The thing was that that part of the story took up space, but I'm not sure that it really had a point in the bigger novel picture.

Still a good start to the series, and Go Blue!! ( )