Antiques Roadkill: A Trash 'n' Treasures Mystery (Trash N Treasures Mysteries) [Hardcover]

Barbara Allan (Author)

Book Description

Series: Trash N Treasures Mysteries | Publication Date: August 1, 2006

Brandy arrives to find small-town Serenity anything but serene. It seems Clint Carson, an unscrupulous antiques dealer, has swindled Vivian out of the family's heirlooms. But when Brandy impulsively confronts him, her outburst amounts to about as much as what Carson paid for the Borne antiques. And when Carson is found run over in a country lane near his farmhouse, Brandy has made herself Murder Suspect Number One - with her mother coming in a very close second. The number of other suspects in Carson's hit-and-run ruin is impressive - his business seems to have been based primarily on bilking seniors out of their heirlooms. When Brandy and her mother begin poking, an avalanche of warnings follows - from the mysterious, charismatic chief of police, from a handsome young cop who once busted Brandy for speeding...even from Brandy's childhood friend turned grown-up wild child. Tracking down clues proves even more challenging than sorting trash from treasure at the local garage sales, and when the Borne "girls" uncover a few very unsavoury Serenity secrets, they become targets for a murderer whose favourite hobby seems to be collecting victims.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

After her divorce, Brandy Borne heads back to the small midwestern town where she grew up only to find that her mentally ill mother, Vivian, has sold all the family's antiques to unscrupulous dealer Clint Carson. Before Brandy can reclaim the family heirlooms, Carson is murdered, and both Brandy and Vivian confess, each hoping to protect the other. When it becomes clear that neither of them is guilty, Brandy investigates. This mystery offers a likable heroine whose first-person narration draws the reader into the story, which includes subplots concerning the somewhat strained relationship between Brandy and her much older sister and the challenge of living with a flamboyant mother who is quite eccentric when she doesn't take her medication. Humor, though sometimes somewhat forced, laces the narrative in this first in a promising series. Readers of Sharon Fiffer will enjoy the antiques frame, including various tricks of the trade addressed to the reader at the end of each chapter. Sue O'Brien
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"With its small town setting and cast of quirky characters, Antiques Roadkill is fun from start to finish. Dive in and enjoy."

Product Details

• Hardcover: 232 pages
• Publisher: Kensington Books; First Edition edition (August 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0758211910
• ISBN-13: 978-0758211910
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,566,542 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An average cozy, September 21, 2006

By 

Corinne H. Smith (Athol, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Antiques Roadkill: A Trash 'n' Treasures Mystery (Trash N Treasures Mysteries) (Hardcover)

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.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good writing overcomes initially unlikable protagonist, September 7, 2006

By 

booksforabuck "BooksForABuck" (Long Beach, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Antiques Roadkill: A Trash 'n' Treasures Mystery (Trash N Treasures Mysteries) (Hardcover)

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.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Couldn't even finish it!, April 23, 2010

By 

J. Larson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Antiques Roadkill: A Trash 'n' Treasures Mystery (Mass Market Paperback)

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.