Customer Reviews

Wicked Fix (Home Repair Is Homicide Mysteries)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In Eastport, Maine Jacobia "Jake" Tiptree has earned the life she wanted for herself and her son and is contented with her current situation. Jake can even deal with her former husband Victor although she occasionally wishes it were from the other side of the continent rather than in Eastport.

Jacobia, Wade (her significant other), her friend Ellie, Victor, and a few other people go to a restaurant where they run into the town's bad boy, Reuben Tate. Surprisingly, Victor and Tate exchange heated words. Even more shocking is when Jake and Ellie find the murdered corpse of Reuben in the town cemetery. His throat is slit open. The weapon is a surgeon's scalpel traced to Victor,s medical paraphernalia collection. The police arrest the obvious suspect forcing the loyal and responsible Jacobia accompanied by Ellie, to make inquires. They quickly learn that Reuben has no friends but a plethora of enemies elated to hear that the man is finally dead. There are so many suspects Jake begins to doubt she will ever find the real perpetrator but she keeps on searching because she believes that Victor is not a murderer.

Sarah Graves captures the essence of small town Maine with an uncanny insight that turns WICKED FIX into a fun, page-turning read. The cast consists of a horde of eccentric characters that are indigenous to the region. The protagonist is a strong, down-to-earth person who the audience will identify with but they will also wonder why she goes to such extraordinary lengths to clear Victor of the charges against him. The who-done-it is an enjoyable regional cozy that succeeds because Ms. Graves makes the inhabitants of Eastport seem so genuine and alive.

Harriet Klausner

. . .you'll know that something wicked this way comes, when you pick up this delicious book! Third in the Mainely Murder Mysteries, Sarah Graves just swoops you right into her world of Eastport Maine and doesn't let you go until she's good and ready.

Wicked here is personified by Reuben Tate, a native Eastporter who's come back to visit for the annual Salmon Festival. Or, maybe just to make trouble, at which he specializes with a capital S and a capital T, as well. Actually, he doesn't really need an excuse; he just likes to stir things up. And does he ever!

Jacobia Tiptree is the kind of clever, capable woman most other women would like to have as a friend, and when she hurts, you hurt, also. It doesn't take long in this book for Jacobia to be hurting in a big way. Used to standing on her own two feet, it never dawns on her that her best friend Ellie Carpenter is exactly the same kind of woman as Jake is herself, and the two of them together are formidable, indeed.

Except, of course, when Reuben's evil ways have been passed along to one of his disciples, who enlarges on them in his own unique fashion. Jake and her new love Wade, her son Sam, her former husband Victor, her friends Ellie and George, plus many of the townsfolk appear in this book, and by the end, they'll all be your good friends, too. Or you'll wish they were, just because they're such wonderful people. Even Victor has some saving graces.

This is not a cozy novel, however, and if you prefer non-violent, non-graphic wickedness, then maybe you won't care for it as much as I do. But then, I don't usually like those elements either. These books succeed on every level, however, the writing is purely superb; lyrical and expressive, while the characters are so strong they breathe! You'll be able to smell the sea, it's so much a part of the setting, not to mention the lobster and the salmon and the . . . just another reason for that 'delicious' in the first sentence of this book. I think I've recommended these books to everyone I know. My only grumble is that I can read the book faster than the author can write it. I tried to slow down, but I just couldn't--I HAD to know the who and the how and the why. And I had to know it, now.

I enjoyed this book. It is the first one in this series that I have read. I plan to read the 2 previous books now as well.

I enjoyed the characters. Jacobia is a smart amateur sleuth. She and Ellie are a great team for investigating. She is a newcomer to the area but was knowledgeable about the area and with Ellie's help got the locals to talk to her.

Her exhusband is an unlikeable fellow and I was glad he wasn't too involved in the story.

I would like to see a little more interaction with her son Sam and her boyfriend Wade.

I felt this story was very good. I did have an inkling as to who did it before it ended, but I wasn't sure.

I recommend this book.

I live in the area that is described in the Eastport mysteries -work in Lubec, sing in Eastport, travel the roads, frequent the restaurants, and sometimes think I recognize elements of Grave's characters in my neighbors. This is a great but disturbing read. Great, because this author writes a good mystery with relevant characters and she is a skilled story teller. Disturbing because of the reality that the themes in this book have for me as a counselor in this area.

What is disturbing about this mystery for me is the number of characters who die, the violence of their deaths, and the chilling denouement. These are all appropriate to the subject matter, however, and if you view fiction as an allegory for real life, a form that is both entertaining and informative, the very intensity and scope of the violence in this work of fiction are indicative of the harm that sustained child abuse can create both in the individual psyche and in the culture at large.

I prefer to have only one murder victim in a mystery; too many murders seem gratuitous and detract from the plotline (for me). As a pacifist, one of the things I like about murder mysteries is the symbolic way we can vanquish the enemy without actually harming anyone. To feel OK about enjoying a story in which people are killed, however, I need to feel a character's death is "justified." That wasn't always the case here.

Throughout this book I kept wondering why a superfluous character in a bar was killed ... he didn't seem to fit. Though he appeared to be a loser and a bum, I have known many men like him who have come up hard, have lived hard, and who have no where to go. While I find it impossible to like them, I do feel compassion for them. Where is the possibility of redemption if we kill such weak and ineffectual characters off?

I was also offended, a first with this author, by the description of a character as physically unattractive and hairy and ape like. Harping on physical characteristics that one has no control over seemed prejudicial and it was a jarring note in this author's otherwise wise and compassionate approach to characterization. The venomous description was out of character for the author and I wondered why this hadn't been edited out. These are minor points, however. It was the subject matter itself that left me pondering for days ...

The ending was disturbing in that a child was involved in such violence; where will this lead her? I see the results of this violence in developing children. I feel uneasy about murder mysteries that involve children, though the scene with the rag doll at the town celebration was chillingly real, as were the instances of child bullying, if not the actual child murder. Also, the crime of omission, the preacher not protecting a child who desperately needed relief from ongoing abuse, this was also close enough to reality to have a tinge of despair set in.

But perhaps this isn't bad. Good fiction can inform us about social problems as well as entertain. We need to wake up to child abuse and its life long effects. We need to have the courage to take a stand against violence, even when it may make us more vulnerable, or we may lose status, or friendships, or family we love.

Not all things are sad in this story. Wade is a rock; there are actually fishermen (and other men) in Maine like him. Men of few words and great integrity. Wouldn't that be something nice to clone! The women are strong and resourceful and the kids are realistic, so like the kids I know and work with. Not bad, not good, but people in the making, youth in need of guidance and positive role models. The cop is a nice, fair guy, and he loves and respects his attorney wife - no macho testrionics there. In fact strong women abound in these books, and not at the expense of the male characters, who remain true to life, fully fledged, feeling, conflicted, and often noble human beings.

We actually do not have many murders in Maine - it's one of the safest states to live in. But we do have all the problems that plague the rest of the country; we are, perhaps, more aware of them because there are so few of us in any one place. The victims of abuse are people we know, intimately, as are the perpetrators. This was a brave book. It's easy to write flighty stories about things that don't really matter. I commend this author for taking on a difficult topic and still making a good, readable story while forcing us to look more honestly at ourselves, and to motivate us to find a way to change.

Jacobia Tiptree gives up Wall Street to move to a small Maine town in order to remove her teenaged son from the less-than-desirable influences. She buys a fixer-it-upper that never seems to be fixed up. When a vicious ex-resident returns, the townspeople are none too happy about it. When he is found dead, the evidence seems to point to Jacobia's ex-husband. While she doesn't exactly wish him well, she knows that he's not capable of cold-blooded murder. In order to prove that, she has to discover who the murderer really is. This series gets better with each outing. The author has created characters who are likable, the plots are interesting and well constructed, and you almost smell the burning fall leaves.

Author captures the look,feel, and sound of Downeast Maine in a well crafted who-done-it complete with a hair raising finale. Did you love Nancy Drew mysteries or the Hardy Boys when you were a kid? You'll love this author. For readers already hooked on this series this book is a real treat. New readers will want all three books but they can be read in any order.

Sarah Graves writes with humor and wit. Her charachters are a little offbeat and unforgetable. With a page turning plot she captures the feel of Downeast Maine (described as a world apart) to a tee. She will not only leave you begging for more adventures of Eastport's Jacobia Tiptree and friends, but will also instill a longing in you to visit this seacoast town and perhaps have a bite to eat at the Waco Diner.

While I didn't find this book to be as interesting as Triple Witch, I just wanted to comment on the much-improved writing by the author. I'd complained before about the distracting overuse of commas in Graves' other two books; I'm pleased to see that this book flowed nicely.

Despite my not enjoying Wicked Fix as much as Triple Witch, I would read Graves again. She gives her characters a good amount of depth and her dialogue and narrative is very witty.

Spoilers.........Spoilers......Spoilers
I have recently found this series of books and have enjoyed them, so far. This entry is a good read, but not as good as Dead Cat Bounce or Triple Witch. The reason for the first two murders is plausible, but the other actions of the murderer are a bit "out there", even for this series.

Then there is Victor. I think its a good idea that Graves toned him down on this entry, but this new personality is really not in line with what we know of him from other books. Here he is described as being so caring and concerned with what the town people think of him. But this is the exact opposite of what we have learned before. Victor has been described previously as nothing short of a psychopath. This is the guy that medicated himself into a heart attack when Jake filed for divorce, sent his mother a dead animal when he found out she was still sending Jake birthday cards after the divorce and has terrorized Jake and Sam for years. Sure, he used to be a great surgeon and seems to care for his patients, but outside of his work he is a viscious bully.

I really found it hard to believe that Jake was funding Victor's medical center. Yes, it will be a good thing for the community and for Victor, but it would be totally in keeping with Victor's past actions to refuse to return her money, no matter how much money he makes. And, he was a high raking surgeon for goodness sakes, how come Jake has to keep bailing him out financially when he should be as wealthy as she, if not more?

Bottom line on Victor for me - less is more. I'm hoping that Jake soon makes a complete break with him emotionally and stops acting like his wife/mother. Like at the end of this book when Victor is going through the items on her dresser. Instead of telling him to back off Jake gets furious and says NOTHING. Ellie and Wade have to put him in his place.

I did enjoy the way Wade showed Victor that he and Jake are a couple. But, Jake is going to have to do the same, limiting the amount of influence she allows Victor to have on her life. I wouldn't mind Victor making brief appearances in future books, but only brief ones.

I have either read or listened to the audio version of all the books in this series. Unfortunately, this title "Wicked Fix" is not available on CD at this time, so I ordered the book. I am a recent and diehard fan of Sarah Graves and her home repair mystery series. They make you want to take a trip up north to Down East Maine just to admire the old homes and beautiful landscape.
I give this book a 9 out 10 rating and reccomend the entire series of books. Jake and Ellie are my heros!