Too Much Stuff

The Wrong Stuff by Sharon Fiffer features Chicago-based antique picker Jane Wheel. Jane is obsessed with vintage flowers, Bakelite buttons, old report cards, and ephemera from all eras, essentially she is a junk collector. Her garage and all rooms in her house are crammed with bits of other people's lives.

In The Wrong Stuff she is pondering becoming an associate with her friend Tim Lowry, an antiques dealer, or joining former police detective Brian Oh's private investigation company. When Oh's wife Claire is arrested for murdering another antiques dealer, Jane combines both offers and tries to solve the case.

I plodded through the first two books in this series in the hopes that I could get out from under all the junk Jane collects. Finally this book has seen the light and there is not as much description of the junk Jane is viewing nor the running monologue in her head. There's still too much of the bickering parents - Don and Nellie, but the story is interesting and the plot is intricate.

Tim and Jane travel to Michigan to Campbell and LaSalle, an idyllic community of artisans and furniture crafters, to discover how Claire's one-of-a-kind Westman dresser delivered there to be restored became a fake. When another murder takes place on the property, Jane and Tim are drawn into this case. Is there a connection between the two deaths? Jane, Tim and in disguise Brian Oh try to connect the dots.

I keep hoping these books will draw away from all the junk descriptions and move up a level. So far The Wrong Stuff was a good step in that direction. I hope to read the next book in the series, but I need a break from all the junk first. The first book in the series is Killer Stuff.