Meg Langslow is a unique woman with a unique talent – she’s a blacksmith. For the time being, however, she’s had to put her forge aside and forge ahead with something even bigger, in the form of a fifteen-family yard sale. She and her boyfriend Michael have purchased an older home on the outskirts of the small town of Caerphilly, and all the things that were in the house now belong to them. Most of it junk, some of it collectable, they’ve decided to have a yard sale and all the relatives decided to join them and bring their own rubbish to get rid of.
With everything set up in the yard and ready to go, Meg thinks things are under control. But yard sale customers start banging on her door before it’s even light, and the first person she sees when she looks outside is Gordon, aptly nicknamed Gordon-you-thief for the way he resells valuable items for far above their real value. His antique store is beautiful, but you only shop there if you can afford the high mark-up. Meg suspects he’s there to look over the old books, and she doesn’t mind selling them, but she dislikes the way he pushed to the front of the line so he could get in first.
The sale kicks off with a bang, and then it ends with a murder. Gordon is found stuffed in a trunk, dead. It turns out that nearly everyone in town had a motive for killing him. Michael’s friend Giles is the first suspect, and Meg decides that she’ll do some amateur sleuthing to clear Giles’ name.
Things get more complicated, however, when the yard sale customers decide they’re having too much fun to leave. Soon food vendors show up, selling funnel cakes and cotton candy, and Meg’s whole yard is turned into a carnival. This doesn’t make things any easier for the police, who have to keep track of everyone’s comings and goings, and take fingerprints as well. And then the neighbor’s sheep get loose. In the midst of all this, Meg’s father is wandering around in an owl costume, determined to educate all comers to the sale about the plight of the great horned owl.
An enjoyable story of murder, detective work, and deals for a dollar, I highly recommend this book by Donna Andrews.
(This book was published by St. Martin’s Press in 2005.)
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