Sink Trap

First Line: "Georgiana? Georgiana Neverall, is that you under there?"

Former computer security expert Georgiana Neverall is now a plumber's apprentice and is enjoying every minute of it until she finds Martha Tepper's favorite brooch clogging a drain in an old warehouse. No one else seems to think it's a big deal, so Georgiana decides to do a bit of sleuthing on her own. It's not long at all before she needs more than a bit of plumber's tape and a wrench to keep out of danger.

This is a light, fun mystery with plenty in it to bring me back for more. Georgiana isn't afraid of hard work and brings a welcome sense of humor to her new profession: "Plumbers, in my limited experience, spent an inordinate amount of time underneath sinks.... show more Lately, I identified everyone by their shoes." She's coming down from the high anxiety of her former business and learning to like the woman she's becoming. She's enjoying life being owned by her two Airedales, Daisy and Buddha, and after all those childhood summers camped out in the mystery section of the local library, Georgiana has learned to be observant and notice significant details.

The only two real drawbacks to me were Georgiana's nagging, fault finding mother, and the plain and simple fact that everyone else took so long to figure out that Martha Tepper hadn't retired to Arizona.

It's common for most cozy mysteries to have some sort of theme and recipes or helpful tips. To be honest, for the most part, I tend to skim over them all because they hold very little interest for me. I have to make an exception for Sink Trap. I found Evans' plumbing tips to be interesting and worthwhile.

A main character I'd like to invite over for coffee (and not to take a look at that dripping faucet), two great dogs, a fun cast of secondary characters, an interesting whodunit to solve and free plumbing tips? Where's the next book in this series? show less

I just love finding new to me authors who write a super fun book and this one fit the fun bill perfectly. I was entertained and informed and didn't even mind that I figured out whodunnit towards the middle of the book. Sometimes that bugs the McCrappe out of me, but when the rest of the book is superb, I don't mind.
I really admire Georgiana's intestinal fortitude, coming back home to change her life after her computer security company she started gets taken over by someone she trusted. She could have easily let it crush her, but she put on her big girl panties and went home to start over as a plumber's apprentice.
She is back in her hometown with her mother, best friend and old boyfriend and a mystery. Sometimes (most times) the show more amateur sleuth looking into the mystery can feel forced. This one didn't really feel that way. Georgiana knew something was wrong and she needed to figure out what it was and show others she wasn't crackers.
Best of all, I loved the plumber tips. Common sense tips that helped me and proved my dad right when he gave my first need to have tool kit...tape measure, hacksaw, rubber mallet, adjustable wrench aka crescent, slip-joint pliers, locking jaw pliers, plumber's snake, toilet plunger, and sink plunger, screwdrivers (both common and Philips head)....and the tip about baking soda and vinegar unplugging a sink instead of using the commercial drain cleaners.
And the lovely funny Airdales, Daisy and Buddha! I want an Airdale now.

Multi fun plumber's tips and dogs mystery chocolate bunnies...... show less

Georgiana Neverall has finished with her fast corporate life and returned to her small town home to become a plumber. When she finds a brooch that the well-loved ex-librarian wouldn't have left behind, she suspects foul play.

It starts well but the story takes a long time to get going. It begins with her suspecting something is up, and we're still at that place when the novel starts to wrap up 200 pages later. Georgiana herself is sometimes great, sometimes irritating. Her immaturity about her mother's love life becomes tiring. This is an all right cozy but the mystery needing to develop more and more quickly to really suck me in.

This is the first book in the Georgiana Neverall cosy series. She's a former corporate type who gave it all and moved back home to her small town in Oregon to become an apprentice plumber, much to the chagrin of her mother, a hard-charging Type A real estate agent.

She's working on a job at the Martha Tepper house when she finds a brooch in the pipes, which ordinarily wouldn't seem odd -- people lose jewellery down their sinks all the time, right? But Martha was literally never seen without this brooch as it had much sentimental attachment for her. Georgie is convinced that something must be wrong here, although everyone shrugs this off as Martha told everyone that she was moving away.

As Georgie continues to work in the Tepper house, she show more begins to think the job is jinxed - a toilet breaks and falls on her foot while she's moving it, her boss falls on a broken step while walking to the basement, etc. And that's all before they discover the bloody rag and the bullet shell hidden in the basement wall.

Assisting Georgie are her best friend (who also owns a dog grooming shop, which comes in handy, since Georgie owns two dogs who often need bathing!), her high school sweetheart (who may be more interested in local politics than in her), and her boss' wife (who was close to Martha).

This was a great cozy with good pacing, fun humour, and colourful characters. I liked that each chapter opened with common sense tips about plumbing that everyone can use, and the end of the book had a list of tools that everyone should have in the toolbox. That being said, this book wasn't full of technical jargon, and people who aren't DIYers could easily follow the plot. I'll definitely be checking out the rest of this series. show less

Sink Trap by Christy Evans is the first of the Georgina Neverall mystery series. Set in Oregon, it follows an apprentice plumber (and washout of the dot-com madness) as she tries to solve mysteries in her spare time.

There's a real estate boom going on in her town. She and her boss have been hired to fix up an old commercial building and the home of a the town's former librarian who everyone believes has moved out of state. That is until Georgiana finds the librarian's favorite brooch clogging a sink.

Now from here on it's a pretty standard cosy mystery. The character and her shtick have been introduced. Her supporting characters, her town, and the potential murderers have been paraded by.

From this point on two things have to mesh to make show more the mystery work: the mystery has to balance clues vs. surprise to keep the reader guessing and the characters and their reactions to situations have be plausible. Those that aren't, need to be explained to some degree of satisfaction.

It's the latter that feel apart for me. First and foremost, the missing librarian is well off financially. Library jobs can pay handsomely but not in the sort of amounts this librarian must have been making. Without a proper explanation (even a tossed in line or two), I'm left wondering why she is the way she is. Her status as a librarian was to mark her as harmless and perhaps an easy victim. But to make the crime worth committing, she also had be wealthy. Thus the mystery hinges on a mix and match set of character attributes without the necessary fleshing out. show less

This is not a bad start to a new mystery series. The main character, Georgiana is a plumber which means that she will be able to make interesting discoveries in many places that folks would not normally be looking. The main characters are fairly engaging with enough give-and-take tension to make the relationships more realistic. I was happy to discover that there were not a lot of in depth plumbing descriptions, just enough detail here and there.

A solid mystery with interesting characters. The allusions to old problems were a bit tiring (sounds like the issues are the plot device for book #2) and I wasn't a fan of the romance with the old beau, but I would certainly pick up the next book.