Jacobia โJakeโ Tiptree traded her power-broker life for a run-down dream house in peaceful Eastport, Maine. But the do-it-yourself enthusiast is learning that no matter how carefully you build your home, murder has a way of slipping in through the cracksโฆ
Itโs a bright June afternoon and old-house-fixer-upper Jake Tiptree is driving through downeast Maine on an unusual errand. Sheโs getting ready to interview a large, angry man with a criminal history. Jim Diamond may or may not be harassing his ex-wife with life-threatening letters, but Jake promised her new housekeeper, Bella Diamond, sheโd look into the matter. An ex-con and a deadbeat, Jim Diamond doesnโt have a history of violenceโฆthat is, not until Jake arrives at his apartment and discovers that a killer has been there first.
Suddenly Jake and her best friend, Ellie White, find themselves at the center of a murder with too many suspects and too few clues. And as if thatโs not enough, Jake is now saddled with the manic Bella, whose certainty that sheโll be the next victim is fueling a supercompulsive neatnessโ one that threatens to clean Jake and her long-suffering husband, Wade, out of house and home.
Add to that a moose in her kitchen, a rebellious son with a habit of dumping Miss Right for Miss Wrong, and a troublesome ex of her own, and Jake is already at witโs end. Then she gets word that a horde of her dadโs long-lost relatives mean to descend on Eastport, intending to be put up at her far-from-fixed-up fixer-upper. When the killer does strike again, itโs not where Jake expectsโฆand the victim couldnโt be more of a surprise. For this is a case bigger than the usual angryโex-spouse variety, and now that Jake and Ellie have gotten themselves involved, theyโve each won a special place in a ruthless murdererโs master plan of greed, deception, and death. And the prize? A pair of eternally private roomsโsix feet under!
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