Customer Reviews

Antiques Roadkill: A Trash 'n' Treasures Mystery

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

With the breakup of her marriage (due to a one-night drunken mistake at a high school reunion), Brandy Borne and her blind Shih Tzu move back in with her mother--a woman who is colorful in the best of times and disturbed (and disturbing) when she's off her medication. During the last incident when she'd been off her medication, her mother had sold a lifetime's collection of antiques to an unscrupulous dealer for a few hundred dollars. Now Brandy has to figure out how to get her life back together, while attending the mother-daughter day at the red hat society, getting together with old friends (unfortunately including the woman whose husband was the other participant in the reunion mistake), and dealing with Brandy's much older (and painfully perfect) sister, Peggy Sue.

After a name-calling fight with the antiques dealer at the red hat meeting, Brandy gets a late-night message to meet with him. Her mother picked up the message first and headed out (without a drivers license) running over the dealer. Abruptly, Brandy's life turns downward, with former friends turning away from her and with a repeated series of near-misses on Brandy's life.

The author team writing as Barbara Allan combine some laugh-out-loud situations with antiques advice and small town sleuthing in a promising first mystery. Although Brandy comes off unsympathetically at first, with her not-especially regretful attitude toward her affair, her confrontational posture toward the dealer without giving him a chance to explain himself, and her hateful relationship with her sister, I found that she grew on me as the book continued--of course, putting her in near-death situations would have this effect. Allan does a good job managing the suspense level, mixing humor with dangerous situations and keeping the reader involved. A fast easy-to-read style helps as well.

The town of Serenity, with its colorful population and its wealth of interesing buildings and people, adds to the story's interest.

Brandy Borne returns to Iowa and gets involved in solving a murder mystery in her hometown. She's accompanied by an eccentric mother with a flair for the dramatic and a blind Shih Tzu named Sushi. In spite of the Bornes nosing around when and where lay citizens definitely shouldn't, the culprit is satisfactorily brought to justice in the end.

Compared to other light mysteries, I've got to say that "Antiques Roadkill" is rather average. Like another reviewer, I didn't particularly like Brandy at first. Her constant asides to the readers (know what I mean?) began to wear on me. If you're hankering to read an antiques mystery based in the Midwest, pick up one of the Jane Wheel mysteries by Sharon Fiffer. As for me: one episode of this series was enough ... though I *did* enjoy the scene of the final denouement.

First, I'd like to say I admire anyone who writes a book, so it's difficult for me to say this one is worth skipping but there it is. I really, really, really wanted to like this book since I love antiques, but Brandy for me was not my idea of a heroine. Her whole personality is annoying and self centered - she actually blamed the wife of the man she had an affair with for subsequently ruining Brandy's own marriage by telling Brandy's husband about the affair. Really?? We're supposed to feel sorry for Brandy, who chalked up ruining two marriages to a silly mistake? Ugggh. Then she storms around town making snarky comments about everyone's clothing and slams people who have to buy "off the rack". Frankly I was more interested in seeing if anyone would kick her behind than I cared about solving the murder. And don't get me started about all the asides in parenthesis - they completely and constantly broke the flow of writing and often give really stupid advice. I stopped reading once I got to the tidbit on dog pee -again, really?? Put a towel on the wet stain and stomp on it but don't do it in bare feet??? That was the limit of the sage advice and of Brandy that I could take. I didn't even bother to skip to the end to see who did it, which is too bad as I also have the second one in the series and can't even bring myself to read it. I did like the dog, sort of, but the others including her mother were really annoying.

A long, detailed review would probably do "Antiques Roadkill" a disservice, as the book clearly isn't meant to be scrutinized and analyzed, rather pleasantly enjoyed and passed to a friend... or, in my case, sent to the second Kindle on my account, so my wife could read it. In any event, printed book or Kindle-ized version, Barbara Allan's first installment in her "Trash & Treasures" mystery series has all the elements any self-respecting "cozy" series needs. A cute heroine? Check. Quirky, eccentric, but ultimately likable supporting characters surrounding the heroine? Check. A picturesque small town setting? Check. A fascinating hobby or interest that's promoted by the characters and ties the whole book together? Check (in this case, it's antiques). Exasperated law enforcement officials who slowly lose patience for the heroine's amateur sleuthing efforts? Check. And finally, a credible mystery plot laced with enough danger to create adequate tension but not enough to torpedo the overall light, bouncy, tone of the story? Check.

In other words, Ms. Allan's "Antiques Roadkill" delivers everything fans of light, "cozy" mysteries expect, but does so in a fresh, invigorating way.

Okay, enough cute hedging about the book's authorship. Barbara Allan is, of course, the pen name for the husband-and-wife writing team of Max Allan Collins and Barbara Collins. I'm a big fan of Mr. Collins' solo mystery works, so I thought I'd try this collaboration out. It's not as tough or sexy as the stories Mr. Collins produces on his own, but then it's not supposed to be. What you get is banter, family craziness, a couple of tight spots, and yes, a cute pet (another "cozy" must). Nothing spectacular, but all fun. Though I don't know for sure, I suspect Mr. Collins' main contributions were the plot, fast pacing, and occasional dangerous situations, with Barbara Collins contributing the quirkiness, girlish banter, and neurotic internal monologues (as those elements don't often turn up in Mr. Collins' solo books).

If you're like me and dive into the occasional (or maybe more than occasional) lighter mystery as a change of pace from all the blood-and-guts mysteries and thrillers out there, you'll certainly enjoy "Antiques Roadkill". I'm going to move on to the next book in the series before too long, and after reading "Antiques Roadkill", you'll probably want to, as well.

I liked much of this book. The characters were fresh and funny. They were similar in many ways to those of Janet Evanovich and Sarah Shankman. The mystery was mysterious enough for a light summer or a snowy winter read. I love antiquing, so the theme was interesting to me. My only problem was with the authors' overuse of some writing elements. I did not like the number of asides in parentheses. They were cute at first, but interrupted the flow of the story too many times. I was also amused by the description of how the mother's eyes were magnified by her thick eyeglass lenses, but became annoyed when this was repeated over and over again throughout the book. 15 or maybe 20 times? These may seem like petty complaints, but the repetition of these devices became very irritating I almost stopped reading halfway through the book. It was like listening to water dripping in a sink. As I continued, their style became less contrived and much more enjoyable. These are obviously two creative and talented writers.

I must say that I read the first chapter of their second book, which was included at the end of the paperback, and cringed at yet another mention of those darn magnified eyes!

Brandy Borne is not sure if she is on antidepressant medicine because of her recent divorce or returning to her hometown of Serenity, overlooking the Mississippi River, to live with her unhinged Red Hat mother Vivian and her social airs elitist wannabe sister Peggy Sue. However, adding to Brandy's depression is that her mom, under some powerful meds, sold family antique furniture to an unprincipled dealer, Clint Carson, for almost nothing. Irate Vivian confronts Carson over his conning a mentally deficient person, but the dealer says legally he provided the consideration in terms of the agreed upon compensation.

Not long after her public outrage towards Carson, someone runs him over on a remote country lane near the dealer's farmhouse. Local law enforcement feels Brandy has the motive making her the prime suspect with the only other person of interest being her mother, who may have been motivated by her daughter's tantrum. Brandy thinks otherwise as the list of people wanting to kill Carson is much of the county, but especially a horde of senior citizens he cheated just like he did her mom. Brandy and Vivian high on medicine investigate as neither trust the cops to be thorough, but there are warnings from much of their neighbors to back off as no one wants the secretes of not so Serenity revealed.

Amateur sleuth fans will enjoy traipsing around Serenity looking for a valuable antique amongst someone's garbage as much as observing Brandy and Vivian tripping over one another seeking to uncover the identity of the killer. During their detecting the two women unearth many of their neighbors' skeletons, which is why so many tell the Borne duo to back down. Fans will enjoy this lighthearted antiques whodunit with Brandy's side tips on collecting a bonus.

Harriet Klausner

Appealing characters, interesting story -- if "Barbara Allan" ever gets over the cutsies, learns the difference between a parenthesis and a comma, and gets a good editor to clear out the unnecessary references, "her" writing may be more fun to read. Unfortunately, I purchased this book, and will now donate it to my library or a thrift store, and I will not buy any more in this series. It's a shame, as the concept is really delightful,but the readabiility is nearly zero! Oh, and all the references to trendy clothes -- why stop the storyline for them? In short, what a shame Kensington didn't run this past a few Beta readers first, and get the manuscript cleaned up.

This type of book is just the cozy mystery, easy read , funny, sort of light reading I usually like. I wanted to like the main character , Brandy, but I found her to be very self-centred, shallow, smug, and just all around unlikeable . The book has all the ingredients to be a good entertaining read but is ruined by it's main character. If the ' heroine ' isn't likeable how can you like the book ?

Like the other reviewers have mentioned, I never really liked the main character Brandy. Her attempts to justify or brush off the reasons behind the break up of her marriage were ridiculous.

Her mother, however is a total hoot! The book is really funny and reads quickly. My main beef with the book is that I figured out the murderer half way through the book only because there just weren't any other viable suspects. The plot isn't developed nearly enough and the one attempt to send you off in another direction was obvious from the beginning. It had real potential, but fell short. I will read the next installment, if for no other reason than to hear from Brandy's mom again. I am hoping the next book has more to depth it though.

I usually like Max Allan Collins' mysteries, and I'm sure I've read others he's written with his wife Barbara, but what happened with this one? To start with, I didn't like Brandy at all. Among other things, she was just too dumb to appeal to me. The book's antique advice seemed to be intended to be hers, but it's in someone else's (smarter) voice. Also, I try to cut a cozy mystery some slack, but I was disappointed at how easily I spotted some of the plot twists coming long before they happened. Maybe I've read too many mysteries.