Customer Reviews

Buried Stuff (Jane Wheel Mysteries, No. 4)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Sharon Fiffer has created a terrific mystery. I've read each of the Jane Wheel books - this is the best yet. Absorbing plot. Excellent use of language and description. Artfully developed characters - they're all quite believable, yet each is quirky in some entertaining way. We've all known a "Nellie" - someone we're in love with one moment and would like to strangle the next. Then there is the unflappable Detective Oh, and his elegant wife, Claire. And Jane's family relationships (with husband Charley, and son Nick) are portrayed in considerable depth and with just the right amount of humor. The story moves quickly along, and the mystery keeps the reader guessing until the end. Mystery lovers should not miss this book. I believe there will be more Jane Wheel editions in our future - and I am thankful for that!

Sharon Fiffer's Stuff series does indeed keep getting better. Heroine Jane Wheel doesn't think there's a lot to her, but we're all the product of our "stuff"--our parents, our histories, our artifacts--and Jane finds out a little bit more about how her stuff is arranged in this mystery that takes her back to her hometown of Kankakee and her friend Tim's all-city garage sale.

Fiffer's got some important things to say about popular culture and personal needs, and she makes it a fun, yet thoughtful, read.

The first several books in this series were amazing, wonderful, really creative. This one lagged in a lot of places, was confusing in some and just plain NOT a very good read. I bought it with high hopes, and got rid of it immediately afterwards, definitely NOT worth rereading. I sure hope the new one is back to her old style!

I love all this author's books! This is one of my favorites. Great mystery, keeps you guessing right up until the end. I love the characters this author brings to life! Jane Wheel and those she meets along the way feel real to me. The Jane Wheel Mysteries are all wonderful and I love each and every one of them being an antiques dealer myself, these books ring true. You feel like you are right along on the hunt for antiques and collectibles. Waking early in the morning for estate sales with your trusty fanny pack filled with the tools of the trade, going to the basement or the back of the house first and working your way to the front, all ring true with my antqiuing experiences.

I love all of the "Jane Wheel" mysteries, particularly "Buried Stuff." Being a picker myself, I have enjoyed the series greatly. They are funny, engaging and witty. I can't wait to read her next book.

One person's garbage is another person's treasure. Just ask Jane Wheel, a picker who goes to real estate sales to buy objects which she expects a demand to resell. She is also a private detective who seems to attract dead bodies like a magnet and finds out who killed them. Both professions provide Jane with the same powerful adrenalin rush although one seems a bit more sedate than the other.

Her friends persuade Jane to host a garage sale to rid her of the overflow and make room for new purchases. Shortly after the opening, Jane receives a phone call from her mother in Kankakea, Illinois asking for her and her geologist husband Charley to visit in order to examine some remains her neighbor Fuzzy found buried on her property.

Jane, Charley and their son Mick camp on Fuzzy's land. A noise awakens Jane who sees a man fall to the ground. She realizes that he is Fuzzy's neighbor Johnny Sullivan, a now dead reporter; she also sees Fuzzy walking back to her home. Once again Picker ad Private Investigator Jane is on the case of a homicide.

BURIED STUFF is a terrific cozy due to the strong support cast and obviously the center of the novel Jane, who does not know the meaning of the word quit. Readers get a look at a Midwestern small town in which most of the natives pull together to improve life for everyone. Sharon Fiffer provides an interesting story that grips fans without resorting to violence as Jane struts her stuff trying to solve this fascinating mystery.

Harriet Klausner

o/~ Bakelite
and Jadite and
old table linens o/~
These are a few of Jane Wheel, saloon keepers' daughter, former ad exec, "digger" Charley's re-united wife and Nick's momma, now antique "picker," sentimental "junquer," self-described "curator of the unwanted," and ameuteur sleuth's Favorite Things.
Like Jane's treasured "stuff," Sharon Fiffer's "Stuff" series just keeps getting better. The 4th find in this collectible series starts with an apoplectic Jane at a Garage Sale. They're selling HER Stuff! The Horror! The Horror! But she is saved by an unearthed dead body in a Kankakee cornfield. Cancel the sale! She and crew are off to solve another case. If you can relate to "some stray bit of flotsam from that tidepool of popular culture that passed for her mind," this Stuff's for you! /TundraVision, Amazon Reviewer