Customer Reviews

Crawlspace: A Home Repair Is Homicide Mystery (Home Repair Is Homicide Mysteries)

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

 

 

I am so disappointed in the direction the "Home Repair is Homicide" series has gone. This has always been a quirky and complex series, not what I would really classify as a cozy, but with the last couple of books, I feel like Sarah Graves wants to write a certain kind of stand alone thriller, yet can't let go of Jake and Ellie. And the totally weak and unnecessary subplot involving death threats to Jake- please- what a waste of time! As I mentioned in my review of her last book, "A Face in the Window," I read this series because I love the tidbits about small town Maine life, the adventures Jake has trying to renovate her house, and the relationships between Jake, Ellie and their respective families. In this book, I guess there is a decent storyline, but I feel like tiny bits of the characters are thrown in so she can call it part of the series.

And I have to ask, why do reviewers insist on including detailed plotlines in their reviews?

A surprise phone call from an old acquaintance pulls "Jake" Tiptree into a missing persons investigation. Jake's former Manhattan neighbor, Chip Hahn, had accompanied his boss, an obnoxious "True Crime" author, to Eastport to research her latest book. But shortly after enjoying one too many drinks at a local bar the young author, Carolyn Rathbone , disappears. Is her disappearance related to the unsolved murders of two local women or does Jake's friend Chip know more than he's saying? Things are about to take a very personal (and frightening) turn for Jake...

I've always felt that this series was a little edgier than the typical "cozy" and this installment has a dark, tense feel. There are fewer domestic details, the home repair tips are sparse and the familiar Eastport characters make only cameo appearances. However, in their place is a nicely written, fast-paced story that works as a stand-alone novel. The story maintains a nice suspense level that hooked me early on and kept me flipping pages way past my bedtime! At times this book was tough to put down and I when I wasn't reading I found myself thinking about the storyline.

One small complaint. There is a sequence towards the end of the book where Jake and Bella (her housekeeper/step mom) are getting into Jake's car which is parked in a somewhat remote location. The next time we see them they are hitching a ride...I'm assuming something happened to the car, but there wasn't any explanation (that I could find). The whole incident was rather odd and threw the timing of the story off a bit for me.

If you are new to the series then you are on to a good thing. I would recommend starting at the beginning with `Dead Cat Bounce' to get the lowdown on Jake and how she came to occupy her beloved old house in down east Maine.

No swearing and no sexual content; some violent scenes

I am also disappointed in the way the series has gone in these last two books. I really enjoyed having all the characters working out the mysteries and I always felt at home with them. The last two books have been very dark and it seemed as though she is backing away from the hometown and writing from different perspectives. I was getting very tired of reading about Chip in this book. I felt like I wanted to reach through the pages and punch him. I miss Jake and Ellie and everyone. They are the heart and soul of the series. I really hope that Sarah Graves goes back to the Eastport community that we have all grown to love and stay away from the gore. If I wanted that much terror and yuck, I would read Steven King.

I write this review with enormous regret. I have read every single one of the books in this series, and I have enjoyed most of them, especially the earlier ones. In my opinion, Ms Graves needs to take a different direction if she wants to keep her audience. I love books about Maine, and the home repair aspect has been very engaging in her series up to now. I also enjoyed the complex financial maneuvering, especially in the first three books. I am an admirer of Ms Graves, and I would love to see her once again return to the form she exhibited in the earlier books in the series.

I agree with many of the negative comments made in the reviews that have already been posted. I wanted to add a couple, though. While I started this book, I could not finish it, and I wanted to explain why.

First, Ms Graves' writing has never been her strong point, but this entry in her series was almost a pastiche of the weaknesses that have already appeared in her other books. The most obvious issue is her paragraphing. One sentence is not a paragraph. Most of her paragraphs are single sentences, sometimes even sentence fragments. This means that most of the page is covered not with print, but with the spaces generated by her paragraphing. This is distracting, but it also in this case made me wonder how long the book really was. Suspense should be conveyed by the words used, not how they appear on the page.

Second, I am really, really, tired of Jake (and her family) being beaten up, chased, threatened, blown up, and otherwise abused. Most detective story series have one entry in which the detective is a suspect and/or physically decimated in one way or another. In this series, however, Jake on the receiving end of someone's violence is a theme. It seems that she no longer solves mysteries; rather, she runs around warding off threats to herself or her family members. The mysteries are thin and getting thinner. While I understand the need to have murders committed in proximity to the detective (unless the detective is a police officer or something similar), and I can accept that every time Jessica Fletcher or Jane Marple goes anywhere someone is likely to get bumped off, the perpetual physical threat to Jake has become tiresome.

Third, the plots (as I mentioned above) have gotten thinner and thinner. As far as I could tell from skimming Crawl Space once I realized I would not be able to finish it, the vast majority of the book had almost no detection in it whatsoever. It was essentially a lengthy chase scene. That works in movies; it works less well in books.

As I said above, I am an admirer of Sarah Graves. I want very much to like the next book in the series!

I have read all of this home repair series and being a home repair person myself and from Maine I have enjoyed this identity with the author. I have not enjoyed the last few books.Her departure from the relationships we have grown accustomed to in solving crime is disheartening. I feel like the books are being written by someone else. They are entirely too gruesome and thriller oriented. Carolyn's continuous mind play of the faces of the bodies she has written about was overdone and Chip's falling in love with Carolyn--come on. The book itself was about Chip and Carolyn's adventures and the "crawl space" mishap was given a few pages.To the author I would like to say "Please get back on track".

As a stand alone book, it was pretty darn good. But, I do like the earlier books in the series better. This series is getting less "cozy" with each successive book. My advice? If you liked the last book, read this one. If you hated the last book, skip this one, too. I did like getting to know Bella better.

The "suspense" in this book was so bad it was funny. There were so many people running around up the coast in the house out the door without reason it was like a Keystone Cop comedy. The "bad guy"'s motivation seems to be to allow the author to write one more chapter. For example, half the book is spent with him boating all over the coast looking for somewhere to kill and then hide the bodies of his hostages. However, are we the reader not supposed to notice that he has one of the hostages chained to an anchor? What better place to dump a body than the bottom of the Atlantic? Just pitch the guy off the deck! At the end of the book our main characters are lured out of the house and kidnapped for the sole purpose of hauling them to a basement room that will completely fill with water at high tide and thus kill them. Why lure them in the first place? (Why not just shoot them?) Luckily, there are vacuum cleaner parts (????) in this old store room that floods so our heroines can breath through the tubes (even though one of them is unconscious) while awaiting rescue. Puh-lease!

Bad writing style. Book is filled with incomplete sentences. "If you don't mind reading a book where most pages have someone..." finishing your sentences, then this book is okay.

Six years ago, everyone believed Randy Dodd died because there was plenty of evidence backing that belief. It also was assumed that Randy killed his wife Cornelia. His brother Roger, who was married to Cornelia's sister, lost his spouse in an accident so he grieves all the tragedies that has hammered at his soul. Nothing altered these convictions until true crime writer Carolyn Rathbone and her assistant Chip Hahn arrive in Eastport, Maine to research the tragedy of the Lang sisters for a book she is writing.

Carolyn and Chip believe Randy is alive and is responsible for the deaths of both sisters as he wanted their inheritance. Randy is in town to access the money, but first kidnaps Carolyn with the intent to kill her because he simply enjoys murdering women.

Jacobia "Jake" Tiptree awakens to the realism her son Sam failed to come home last night and later discovers he was seen and recognized Randy. Sam is also the killer's prisoner. Jake is determined to find out where Randy hides and rescue the writer and her offspring. With help from her step-brother, her best friend, her housekeeper and Chip, Jake begins her search. A clue from Roger assists them, but they remain ignorant that they are entering a trap until it is sprung.

Crawlspace is much more violent than the usual Home Repair amateur sleuth tales due to the predator; rather than a cozy this tale is more a suspense thriller. Readers ironically know Randy lives from the onset when the residents of Eastport sleep serenely at night because they believe he is dead. The story line is terrific with a great finish that will stun the audience used to amateur sleuth superheroes as fans will salute Sarah Graves with a strong grim entry.

Harriet Klausner

This is one of her better books. It holds your attention from beginning to end. I like the fact that more of the characters are coming into their own. There are lots of twists and turns that add to the suspense.