Saturday, September 20, 2014

Shadows on a Maine Christmas: An Antique Print Mystery-Lea Wait

Shadows on a Maine Christmas: An Antique Print Mystery
Lea Wait
Perseverance, Sep 9 2014, $15.95
ISBN 9781564745477

Lovers Will Brower resides in Maine while antique dealer Maggie Summer lives in New Jersey.  Besides the issues of a long distance relationship, the couple disagrees over adopting a child.  Will insists never; while Maggie may soon raise a little girl or two young sisters.  However, the couple agrees to share a Maine Christmas.

Maggie the obsessive anxiety queen fears when she tells her beloved about the potential adoption, he will kick her butt back to the Garden State.  She adores the way he cares for his ailing Aunt Nettie, but panics his caretaking blinds him to nurturing others.  She also frets over his desire to remain in the Pine Tree State as affirmed by Will his seeking to buy a home.  However, Maggie biggest consternation is that she lost her Will to realtor Jo Heartwood.  Needing to forget her trepidations, Maggie wonders what Aunt Nettie and her longtime friends imply criminally happened when they were much younger.  When someone murders geriatric nurse Carrie Folk; Maggie, Maine State Trooper Nick Strait and Aunt Nettie investigate especially after learning that the victim was a blackmailer.

Returning to Maine (see Shadows on the Coast of Maine and Shadows of a Down East Summer), the seventh Antique Print cozy (see Shadows on a Cape Cod Wedding) is an enjoyable entry in which the secondary elderly characters especially one with dementia own the storyline.  The homicide investigation begins late though the informal inquiry into what happened decades ago starts very early; as Lea Wait provides a deep look at senior citizen mental health, abortion and adoption. 


Harriet Klausner

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