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Loading... Murder in Miniatureby Margaret Grace
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. If you're looking for a fast-paced nail baiter to keep you awake at night, don't pick up this book, but if you are looking for a warm and cozy mystery, this might be just up your alley. If, as a child, you loved to play with your dollhouse and even imagined specialized furniture, you could pick up a few tips on how to make your own while following the "investigation" into murder and robberies. Geraldine Porter is a miniaturist - in other words she plays with doll houses. Gerry is this year's chairwoman of the local Dollhouse and Miniatures Fair and at the same time is visited by her granddaughter who is extremely inquisitive. So when her friend disappears unexpe3ctedly during the Fair, Gerry has to take on added responsibilities. Having a nephew on the local police force, Gerry and her granddaughter try to assist the investigation with personal observations. This book is not exactly like most cozy mysteries in that Gerry doesn't so much investigate on her own as just gather information. The characters are very true to life and make you want to get to know them better. I'll definitely be reading more in this series. This review was written for LibraryThing Member Giveaways. Some murder mysteries keep you up all night, with all the lights on and doors locked. Some keep you company when you have a head cold and some just take up space on the bookshelf. This particular one didn't make me lock all my doors, nor was it intended to. It was a wonderful, comfortable read that took me someplace I hadn't been before (the world of miniatures, dollhouses and the crafters that live for it). I had good company, mostly a retired teacher and her prepubescent visiting granddaughter. Both were believable, as were the others who wandered in and out of her tea table in the atrium. The mystery wasn't as important to me as the story. I enjoyed how the characters interacted, how "Grandma" had to think of ways to keep her grandchild safe and protected from the mean old world, how the warmth and familial caring pierced any harshness in the story. Perhaps I would call it a kindler, gentler murder mystery. I enjoyed it and would definitely recommend it to others. btw - while I wouldn't read it when in bed with a head cold, it was the perfect thing when in bed with a bad back. Geraldine Porter is a recent widow and retired high school English teacher, living in her beloved vintage Eichler home in the upscale California town of Lincoln Point. As chairwoman of the local Dollhouse and Miniatures Fair and hosting her visiting granddaughter, Gerry has her hands too full to worry about the curious behavior of her friend Linda Reed. Misfortune follows Linda like a cloud of stale perfume, so when both Linda and her prized miniature Governor Winthrop desk go missing the morning the fair starts, Gerry is far more annoyed than worried. But a late night emergency phone call from Linda and the discovery of the body of a dead drifter soon has Gerry's full attention. Before the week is out, a prominent businessman is found shot and Linda's missing desk turns up in a most bizarre place. Linda knows more than she's telling, and Gerry has to get to the bottom of things before both she and her granddaughter get sucked into the tide. This book was fairly predictable with the typical ingredients of a cozy mystery series -- a likable heroine, a humorous "sidekick" (this time a ten year old girl written without a whole lot of "cute" but a fair amount of savvy), a nice theme for the reader to learn about (this time it's the world of miniatures), a murder or two, and a couple of red herrings thrown in to confuse things. The mystery wasn't incredibly mysterious, and it had enough layers that I'd guessed correctly but that didn't really have a lot to do with the murder. Not being an architecture buff, I had no idea what an "Eichler" home was until I googled it, but the house Gerry lives in was described in much fuller detail than any of the characters were, which was a bit odd. This is one of those books where the author feels it necessary to literally draw you some diagrams in the back of the book -- this time the floor plan of Gerry's house, a chart of the booths at the craft fair in the high school, and a map of downtown Lincoln Point -- and I'm still trying to figure out why we needed to know any of those things. I expect an author to be able to paint me a word picture, I really don't need a map in a book. Oh well. There was also some tips at the end on how to make things in miniature for doll houses. I guess that's some sort of badge of a cozy or something. Mostly I skip stuff like that. I wasn't nuts about this book, but I have to say I did rather like Gerry's granddaughter. She figures in other books in the series so I'll read on for a bit. It's going to be tough to keep Maddie at the age of ten, but it might be interesting to watch her sharpen her instincts as she gets older. I've already got the second book in the series sitting here, so I'll probably continue on with the series. no reviews | add a review
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HTML: A MINIATURE MYSTERY. First in a big new series. Geraldine Porter thought that being the chairwoman of the local Dollhouse and Miniatures Fair would give her leisure time to spend on her favorite craft. That was before a fellow miniatures afficionado is suspected of murder, leaving Gerry to prove the woman's innocence-or die trying. .No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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It was a good mystery (I sorta guessed "who dunnit") and I liked the characters so I'll be reading more in this series. ( )