Nail Biter (Home Repair Is Homicide Mysteries) [Audio CD]

Sarah Graves (Author), Lindsay Ellison (Narrator)

Book Description

Series: Home Repair Is Homicide Mysteries | Publication Date: November 2005

The ninth title in Sarah Graves's bestselling Home Repair is Homicide series, Nail Biter opens with a group of self-styled "witches" that has taken over an Eastport, Maine waterfront resort for Halloween. Jacobia "Jake" Tiptree is called on to answer his new tenants' multiple demands-many dealing with supernatural moaning-but she would rather be excavating an unusual discovery she made in the foundation of her 1823 Federal-style home. Instead, when a fundamentalist preacher turns up dead and all eyes turn to the witches, Jake's soon up to her eyeballs in trouble.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In Graves's neatly constructed ninth whodunit set in Maine (after 2004's Tool & Die), former New York financial whiz Jacobia "Jake" Tiptree and her best friend, Ellie White, invest in a rental property in Quoddy Village ("the nearest thing to a suburb that the tiny island city of Eastport had"), but soon run into trouble. The first renters are a coven of witches led by Gregory Brand, a charismatic man with several women and a teenage girl in tow. After the body of no-good local Eugene Dibble surfaces on the property, the teenager disappears and her desperate mother turns to Jake. Mindful of her recent experiences with her own troubled teenage son, Sam, Jake agrees to help. As Jake delves into Eugene Dibble's life, she balances sleuthing with the never-ending restoration work on her 1823 Federal home and the relationships with her new husband and her former one. Readers will enjoy Jake's repair tips as they follow her dogged investigation all the way to its startling conclusion.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"For fans who enjoy nooks, crannies, subplots, and carpentry tips."—The Kirkus Review


From the Hardcover edition. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Mystery Masters; Unabridged edition (November 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1572705035
• ISBN-13: 978-1572705036
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 5.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,771,792 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Sarah Graves lives with her husband in Eastport, Maine, where her mystery novels are set. She is currently working on her twelfth Home Repair Is Homicide novel.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Quite Depressing, March 15, 2006

By 

Amy E. Rogers (H., N.H., U.S.A.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nail Biter: A Home Repair Is Homicide Mystery (Home Repair is Homicide Mysteries) (Hardcover)

I love the "Home Repair is Homicide" series.. But I feel like they just keep getting more, and more depressing as the series continues.. It seems Jake loses touch with her son, and often becomes irrational and depressed. Not to mention what un-Godly business happens to Victor in this book.. I was in denial the entire time after I read the beginnings of his deal.. I was quite depressed and wanted badly to cry when I read the final words in this book.. I can't even begin to explain how terribly sad it was.. Especially if you're a big fan of this series and the characters.. After this installment it will never be the same..

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not what I'd hoped, February 2, 2006

By 

pjf "pjf" (MD USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nail Biter: A Home Repair Is Homicide Mystery (Home Repair is Homicide Mysteries) (Hardcover)

I've read all the books, buying them in HB when they started coming out that way, but the last few in the series have had trouble keeping my attention. The series seems to be wallowing along lines I don't much care for. Truthfully, I read "cozy" mysteries more for the characters than the plot, but cozy shouldn't require or entail all the characters are annoyingly cutesey. I liked the gruff fat police chief, the dyslexic son, and of course Victor. But the last few stories, Sam has become unrecognizable, Wade and the police chief seem to plod in and out without showing much depth and less realism as time goes on. What is left is not engaging to me as a reader. Elli's cuteness, always too much for my taste or believability, is now overly compounded to the point of hypoglycemia by having a doll like daughter to add to her doll like self. And the appearance several books ago of the back from the dead father, who conveniently and coincidentally is also a fix it up guy, in spite of being "on the run" for years was just too much for me. I've actually found myself reading the last couple of novels mostly to see what Victor was up to, who is the only character that seems to have remained intact and interesting, and whose pique helped counter the cloying sweetness of Elli and the fix it up dad. Obviously Elli, being the sort of Watson to the main character's Holmes (or vice versa) has to stay, but if some one had to go, why not the annoyingly saintly father?

But alas not, and in this book the one leaven remaining that once livened this series' lump has now been lost. Or to put it more in the theme Home Repair, Nail Biter put the nail in the coffin for this series for me. I'm sure the author had her reasons, but I can't see much reason to read any future installments in the series.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The End of the Road, September 4, 2006

By 

A. Daniels - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nail Biter: A Home Repair Is Homicide Mystery (Home Repair is Homicide Mysteries) (Hardcover)

I've had my ups and downs with this series, but have read every entry. There have been characters that I have always enjoyed in the series, George, Sam, though not recently, he seems to be suffering a late adolescence. Maggie has become a bit more flawed and therefore human; I enjoyed her "realness" before she truly had the depth to qualify as a fully formed character. There, of course, has always been Victor, the shining star, who brought edge and acerbic wit and humor to a town full of characters that were either too cutesy (Ellie and now her daughter), too wooden (Wade, forever and always, I'm convinced he is actually a blow-up doll with a looping track, more caricature than character, but I could overlook him considering his brief appearances, or when it comes to Jake recently, simply too neurotic.

I feel like this book is the turning point, if not for the series then for me. Actually, it isn't a turning point it is my jumping off point - I am officially done. The series has been a hodgepodge of okay and make it stop for quite a few books now, but I stayed hoping for a change. The change has come and it is detrimental, it has been alluded to in other posts so I won't elaborate, but I would ask Sarah Graves why and what are you thinking.

I have to question Jacobia's sanity and whether there is any truth to her shrewdness and New York know-it-all attitude. Forget that you rent your property to a coven of witches, but a man with only women and teenage girls in tow - I would ask coven or cult, shouldn't Jake do the same.

This book lacked feeling, the writing was disjointed, some plot points were convoluted, some of the character were so one-dimensional that I felt them tear in two as soon as I turned the page, and in the end I really could have cared less about who did it or why they did it, in fact I hardly cared that most of the characters were still standing and breathing.

Perhaps, enough is enough, if not for the author the definitely for me. Steer clear of this entry and read anew or reread the earlier books in the series it will be a better way to spend a few hours of your time.