ANTIQUES FLEE MARKET
by Barbara Allan
A Prozac-popping daughter and her schizo-affective mother (Antiques Maul, 2007, etc.) return to their amateur sleuthing.
Divorced following a few moments of careless passion at a high school reunion, Brandy Borne has moved back to the usually quiet Mississippi river town of Serenity, where she and her mother Vivian share a booth at the local antique mall. When elderly Mr. Yeager plans to sell a rare edition of Tarzan of the Apes for very little money, Vivian sticks her nose in and quashes the sale. Mr. Yeager promptly turns up dead, his British granddaughter Chaz is arrested and the book disappears. After Vivian hires a lawyer who gets Chaz released on a technicality, Brandy’s college friend Joe, off his meds for Desert Storm-related stress, becomes another likely suspect. In her spare time, Brandy volunteers as a surrogate mother for a longtime, equally shopping-obsessed friend who has cancer but desperately wants a child. Meanwhile, an anonymous letter provides Brandy with a startling revelation about her wealthy, snobbish sister. Amazingly, the duo manage to solve the murder mystery before anyone strangles them in a fit of pique.
The wildest soap opera has nothing on this strained, forgettable tale.