Sell Low, Sweet Harriet

A garage sale in January is a rare sight, but when Sarah Winston hears from a client about one, she is thrilled. In Sell Low, Sweet Harriet by Sherry Harris, when Sarah is approached by the daughter of a deceased couple, Jeanette Blevins, she is stunned with the amount and quality of the items in the house. (Sell Low, Sweet Harriet will be released by Kensington Publishing Corp. on December 31.)

The house is filled with exotic pieces from around the world and almost seems overwhelming. When Sarah learns the couple were retired CIA agents, she wonders what secrets she might find in the house. One thing she discovers is someone else wants to get into the house. 

The intruder isn't really an intruder, and he introduces himself as Troy, Jeanette's brother. Sarah leaves him alone in the study while she does other sorting. Suddenly she hears a crash and finds Troy on the floor injured. He is taken to the hospital, but the next day he disappears. Sarah discovers he was a Fake Troy after she meets the real brother. 

 
But the garage sale isn't the only item Sarah has on her plate. The wife of one of the officers on the base has died and it was originally thought that she slipped on the ice and died of hypothermia. After a thorough investigation, the police determined she was struck on the head, leading them to a murder case. 

Because of her tangential relationship with the base, Scott Pellner, a police officer for the Ellington Police Department, asks her to quietly listen and report back to him anything of importance. Of course listening isn't in Sarah's vocabulary so she begins to ask questions and finds herself in danger.

Another clever mystery with loads of garage sale tips. More Sarah Winston adventures to come. 

Let's Fake a Deal

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Who knew garage sales could get your arrested? Sarah Winston is running a garage sale for a nice young couple from the Midwest. Little does she know the merchandise is stolen. In Let's Fake a Deal by Sherry Harris, Sarah is shocked to suddenly find herself face down on the ground and handcuffed by an overzealous police officer. (Let's Fake a Deal will be release by Kensington Books tomorrow.)

When she tries to find the nice couple to explain the situation to the police, she is stunned to find they have disappeared.  Angered by their deceit, but worried about her reputation, she is determined to find the answers to what happened. She is more terrified when the police discover her credit card number was used to rent the storage unit the Greens claim to be using for their belongings.

With the assistance of her lawyer, Sarah is out of jail in no time, but still has the charges hanging over her head unless she can find the missing Greens. She attempts to call the number they gave her, but no one answers and no one has seen them either.


In the meantime, Sarah contacts a woman who wants to sell the items in her cat collection, There are hundreds of cat-related items and sorting through them takes her mind off the case. Later in the evening, Sarah meets her friend Lt. Colonel Michelle Garcia for a drink. Michelle is in line for a promotion, but as usual there is reticence in the military to promote women.  And someone filed a discrimination complaint against her which stacks the deck even less in her favor.

After a night of drinking, Sarah convinces Michelle to come back to her place rather than drive. The next day they travel to reclaim Michelle's car only to find the body of Major Blade in the front seat.

When  Michelle is arrested for murder, Sarah thinks it's time to call in some favors from her shadowy friend Michael.

The Garage Sale Mysteries are so much fun to read and Sarah has some of the quirkiest garage sale clients you will ever find.



Disclosure: I received this book from NetGalley for a fair review

The Gun Also Rises

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When a wealthy Massachusetts widow hires Sara Winston to sell her enormous mystery collection through her garage sale business, Sarah is in mystery fan heaven. It's all she can do to not read every Nancy Drew, Agatha Christie and other mysteries she is sorting through. In The Gun Also Rises by Sherry Harris, Sarah is diligently working in the attic stuffed with books when she discovers a small overnight case. What she finds leads her into murder.

The overnight case contains short stories written by Ernest Hemingway in 1922, but lost when the case was stolen from a train in Paris. How in the world did it end up in the home of  Belle Winthrop Granville? Does Miss Belle even know the case and papers were in her attic?

Sarah shows Miss Belle the traveling case and the manuscripts, but she doesn't know anything about them or how they managed to be stored in her home. Miss Belle asks to be left alone to digest the news, but when Sarah returns, she finds Miss Belle injured and lying on the floor - and the overnight case gone. When Sarah learns the housekeeper Kay has stolen the case, she leaps into action, chasing into the woods after her.

When she finds, Kay dead and the overnight case missing, this leads her on a hunt for the stolen case. When she learns there might also be a first edition copy of The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway hidden in the house, a frantic search begins. Included in the search is a quirky, fanatical group known as The League of Literary Treasure Hunters, a rare-book dealer who happens to be a friend of the family and a mobster. 

For a high spirited treasure hunt, The Gun Also Rises has all that and more. An excellent book with just the right about of reality thrown in to make it plausible.