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Desperate for money to make a down payment to purchase her cottage, which is about to be sold, Skye Denison, school psychologist, takes a summer job at Cookie's Collectibles. She is fired by Cookie Caldwell, when she informs a potential seller, Mrs Alma Griggs, that the vase Cookie was willing to pay $500 for is worth more than five times that. Much as she detests the option, Skye takes a job from her uncle Dante, who promises her $10,000 to take charge of the Scumble River section of the Route 66 yard sale -- with a bonus of $5000 if the sales goes smoothly. But things begin unraveling when TV hostess Faith Easton arrives to tape the sale for Faith's Finds, a show dedicated to unearthing treasures at flea markets and yard sales. Uncle Dante gives Faith Skye's apartment for her use, a high-handed action at which Skye rebels until Dante and Faith keep throwing money at her, and Skye takes it all with visions of owning her own home. Skye undertakes her duties conscientiously but is sidetracked when Cookie, her former employer, is murdered. Mrs Griggs, who is irate at Cookie's attempt to scam her, would be a suspect, except that she is too frail to lift the sword which was the weapon. She is herself murdered, with Skye a suspect because of very flimsy evidence of her earring being found under Mrs Griggs' body. Swanson's characters usually include Skye's rock, Uncle Charlie, who has just a cameo in this novel, and her brother, who barely appears. I missed both, especially the jovial Charlie. There is perhaps more plot than is really necessary: Skye's organizing the sale; Skye's parents' rift over Skye's father's attentions to another woman; Skye's best friend's problems with her husband, who seems to prefer the livestock on the farm to her; the disappearance of Justin, one of Skye's high school charges and an aspiring investigative reporter; and, finally, Skye's ongoing crush on the sheriff versus her affair with the town mortician. The solution isn't the "had I only realized type" -- the reader is as clueless as Skye to the solution to the murders. Everything is tied up in a sort of Dickensian solution where the good are rewarded and the bad punished.
Reviewed by Mary Elizabeth Devine, August 2005
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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