Review -Deadly Vintage
Author - Elaine Flynn
ISBN - 978-1-880284-87-2
Pages - 259
Rating - 4/5


All Molly Doyle wants to do is run her Carmel antique shop, enjoy raising her niece Emma, and look forward to a deepening relationship with Kenneth Randell the local police chief. But life continues to throw her curves. Molly, who wants to expand her business into interior decorating, accepts a job and finds herself in the midst of family squabbles. When those squabbles end in murder Molly finds herself becoming a suspect while at the same time becoming concerned for Emma's future when a stranger walks into her Treasures Antiques store.

I usually do not like cozy type mysteries but Elaine Flynn has created a great character in Molly Doyle that I find myself searching out her books and enjoying them a great deal. Ms. Flynn writes very well and the plot has enough twists and turns to keep you guessing. I highly recommend this book.

Review- Fire Sale by Sara Paretsky

Genre: Mystery
ISBN 0-399-15279-2
rating 4/5

In this the 12th installment of the Private eye V.I. Warshawski series, V.I. (Vic ) volunteers to fill in for her old high school basketball coach on Chicago's South Side. Vic starts her volunteer stint looking for a team sponsor at a large department store By-Smart, whose founder, Buffalo Bill Bysen, is a fellow alum. Of all Bysen's cutthroat, cost-cutting family, only idealist 19-year-old Billy shows any interest in helping the team. When he disappears, his frustrated father hires Vic to find him. The mother of a high school basketball player also hires Vic to investigate sabotage at the flag factory where she works—an investigation cut short when the factory blows up before Vic's eyes killing the owner. Vic risks life and limb as she winds her way chasing down clues from a fundamentalist church, where the pastor goes to extremes for his flock, to the city dump, where villains try to bury their secrets.

This book is well written, has a good plot and I like the author's writing style. In this book Paretsky uses the mystery genre venue to explore the struggles of the working poor and the schemes of the rich and infamous. The book is fast paced. This book will appeal to V.I. fans and those interested in classism and racism.