Jacobia "Jake" Tiptree interrupts her restoration of her 1823 home in Eastport, Maine, when she unearths an old buried manuscript in her basement. She finds her name and the previous owners' names written in blood in the front of the book. Curiosity overtakes Jake about the book and she sends it to Horace Robotham, a rare book dealer. Before Horace can report his findings, he's murdered and the book disappears. Shortly afterwards, Horace's friend, Dave, arrives at Jake's with a strange request. Can she lock up the gun he brought with him?
Jake complies, not believing the story Dave tells her. Too many pieces do not fit. Her suspicion heightens when the gun disappears from her locked, hidden box. More murders occur and the victims have ties to the lost book. It becomes imperative for Jake to unravel the dark history of the book and discover its relationship to the killer.
The 11th Home Repair is Homicide mystery has Jake, along with family and friends, attempting to solve the murders while trying to survive domestic upheaval and renovating disasters. Jake must determine if the supernatural is involved, or is the answer found in the good old-fashioned motives of greed, jealously and hate. Home repair tidbits are injected among the tightly woven plot and well- developed characters.
Once upon a time, Jacobia "Jake" Tiptree was a hotshot
money manager to Manhattan's rich and dreadfulβuntil she
left city life behind for a centuries-old fixer-upper in
the quaint seaside town of Eastport, Maine. But even this
tiny haven has its hazardsβand they can be astonishingly
deadly....When a mysterious book is
unearthed from the foundation of Jake's 1823 fixer-upper,
she immediately sends it off to local book historian
Horace Robotham. After all, there must be a logical
explanation for why the long-buried volume has her
name in itβwritten in what looks suspiciously like blood.
But all logic goes out the window when the book disappearsβ
and Horace turns up dead.The suspects include
Horace's spoiled daughter, who has enough credit card debt
to give killing her rich daddy a certain appeal. And just
about everyone's pointing fingers at a local crackpot with
a penchant for black magic and an unholy lust for its
artifactsβincluding antique texts inked in blood. To
complicate matters further, there's a mysterious stranger
in town with vengeance in his heart and a gun in his
pocket. Never mind that Jake's just taken a
sledgehammer to her ancient bathroom. Or that she forgot
she's set to host a party for Eastport's most treasured
teacher. She's also about to lose her beloved housekeeper
on account of her father's hasty marriage proposal...and
her son, Sam, has just taken his first tentative steps
toward sobriety.But all that will have to wait,
because when two more victims turn up in a town better
known for its scenic views and historic homes than its
body count, she and her comrade-in-sleuthing, Ellie White,
need to go on the prowl to find someone who may believe
that the pages of an ancient book are the blueprint for a
perfect murder.
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