Secondhand Stiff

October 7, 2013
In Jafarian’s witty and well-plotted eighth Odelia Grey mystery (after 2012’s Hide & Snoop), paralegal Odelia, who has a reputation as a “corpse magnet,” and her wheelchair-bound husband, Greg Stevens, host a family Thanksgiving at their Southern California home. The guests include both of their mothers and Greg’s “tough cookie” second cousin, Ina Bruce, but not Ina’s husband, Tom Bruce, “a slick talking low-life” Ina married right out of high school. The Monday after Thanksgiving, at the insistence of Odelia’s pushy mother, Grace Littlejohn, Odelia and other family members attend an auction at a storage facility, where a unit whose contents are on the block turns out to contain the body of someone they know—Tom. Grace proves to be as much a hindrance as a help in Odelia’s efforts to find out who shot Tom dead. Cozy fans should be prepared for some coarse language. Agent: Whitney Lee, Fielding Agency.

October 15, 2013
Family ties prove both challenging and rewarding for paralegal and amateur investigator Odelia Grey (Hide & Snoop, 2012, etc.). Hoping to amuse both her mother, Grace, who's in town for an extended Thanksgiving visit, and her mother-in-law, Renee, Odelia drives the two of them to Elite Storage out in Long Beach, where her husband's second cousin Ina Bruce is planning to bid on an abandoned storage locker. Ina and her husband, Tom, own a resale shop in Culver City, so locker auctions are familiar ground for her. This one, however, has a twist: When auctioneer Redmond Stokes snips the lock off to show its contents, the locker's most prominent item is Tom's corpse. Now, Ina's in jail, refusing to talk. So it's up to Odelia and her husband, Greg, to figure out the connection between Tom's murder, his mistress, Linda McIntyre, a blogger named Bob Y who uses the Internet to trash talk Los Angeles thrift shops, a food truck called Comfort Foodies and a drive-by shooting on the 405 freeway. For better or worse, they now have a partner, for Grace insists on shouldering her share of the detecting, perhaps to make up for walking out when Odelia was still a teen. Will Grace prove a boon or bane to Odelia, who's still adjusting to her mom's abrupt re-entry into her life? Ina's goods may be secondhand, but Jaffarian's are first-class.

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December 1, 2013

A storage locker auction blows sky-high when an explosion exposes a corpse--a relative of Odelia's husband. The comic plus-size sleuth series returns for its eighth time (after Hide & Snoop).

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2013
The witty Odelia is back juggling relatives and crime in this fast-paced comic mystery. While visiting a storage-locker auction with her mother, mother-in-law, and husband Greg's cousin, Ina, Odelia is shocked to discover the body of Ina's husband, Tom. Ina becomes the main suspect, and Odelia and her stubborn mother travel to other thrift shops attempting to determine what really happened. The murder plot is well constructed, but the real attraction herealong with sampling food-truck cuisineis Odelia's taut relationship with her mother as they deal with their difficult past. The popularity of storage-auction television shows should draw some new readers to this smart and funny series. Odelia and her colorful family and colleagues are as quirky and appealing as those found in Sharon Fiffer's Jane Wheel series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)