RINKER ON COLLECTIBLES — Column #1480

Copyright © Harry Rinker, LLC 2015

2015 Summer Reads - Part I

Previously I had little trouble finding new antiques and collectibles cozy mystery titles for my summer read column.  This year I was worried.  Several authors and series had ended, for example, Sharon Fiffer’s The Jane Wheel Mysteries and Tamar Myers’s Den of Antiquity Series.  Jane Cleland’s next Josie Prescott series novel entitled “Ornaments of Death” is not due for publication until late fall.  Only Barbara Allan and Lea Wait had authored new titles.

Aware that cozy mystery series with specialized subthemes was enjoying a renaissance, I researched the topic.  Much to my delight, I discovered eight new series focusing on collecting topics such as book collecting, buttons, dolls, teapots, vintage kitchen collectibles, and snow globes.  The amateur female sleuths ranged from collection curators, collectors, dealers, and pickers.

There were bodies galore, in some cases, creating a crime rate in the amateur sleuth’s hometown that far exceeded the national average.  In a few instances, there were no bodies at all.  Pets included cats and dogs, some with only three legs.  Male love interests, often a member of the local police force, had a minimal presence and often an antagonistic attitude.  In one instance, the amateur sleuth was married.  A surprising number of antiques and collectibles served as murder weapons – death by a depression glass bowl or a meat grinder from a Hoosier cabinet.  Assorted friends and relatives, many teetering on the point of abnormality, were in abundance.  The New England States, New York, the old Northwestern States such as Michigan, and the South provided the geographical settings.

I spent six weeks binge reading 22 new titles.  I was introduced to dozens of new characters.  Since character development is a critical focus in cozy mysteries, I made a point to read most of the back titles in these series.  Newly discovered authors aside, this summer read review begins with a focus on old friends.

Serenity on the Mississippi is all but serene when the mother and daughter team of Vivian and Brandy Bourne discovered the body of Vanessa Wesley, wife of Wesley Sinclair III, a gentleman whose past history includes Brandy.  “Antiques Swap” written by Barbara Allan, the pseudonym for husband and wife team of Barbara Collins and Max Allan Collins (www.maxallancollins.com), is the latest offering in A Trash ‘n’ Treasures Mystery series.

Brandy, whose hormonal imbalance is evident and only one of her long list of “it can only happen to me” situations, is a 32-year-old divorcee living with her mother whose bipolarity makes her ability to live within the confines of the law questionable.  The formerly blind (miracle operations and recoveries are part of the genre) shih tzu Sushi can now see.  Unfortunately, because of Sushi’s advanced age, no reflection on Vivian’s 73 years, there are some ailments even miracles cannot cure.

“Antiques Swap,” published by Kensington Books (wwww.kensingtonbooks.com), has two major themes.  The first is the shooting of a pilot for a television series entitled “Antiques Sleuths.”  Given the number of bodies that have piled up thus far in Serenity, the local residents are hoping that if the pilot is picked up, most of the episodes will be shot in other locations.  The second focuses on a high-society bridge group known as the Eight of Clubs.  Members of this club bid on more than card suites.

The A Trash ‘n’ Treasures Mystery series has a unique first person approach.  Brandy is the voice for some chapters, Vivian for others.  Although the characters of Brandy and Vivian are fully developed at this point, new characters are introduced and old favorites reappear.

Like all cozy titles, each stands as an independent read.  Hence, each title reintroduces the characters involved and any necessary back story.  When you find a series that excites you, consider reading all the titles in the series.  The books in the A Trash ‘n’ Treasures Mystery series include “Antiques Roadkill,” “Antiques Maul,” “Antiques Flee Market,” “Antiques Bizarre,” Antiques Chop,” and “Antiques Con” plus two e-books “Antiques Slay Ride” and “Antiques Fruitcake.”

Lea Wait (www.leawait.com), author of the Antique Print Mystery series (the next title of which is due out in 2016), launched her Mainely Needlepoint Mystery series with “Twisted Threads.”  “Threads of Evidence,” publishing by Kensington Publishing Corp. (www.kensingtonbooks.com), is the next title in the series.  Following a pattern from her Antique Print Series where each chapter begins with a description of a print, Wait starts each chapter of the Mainely Needlepoint series with a historic quote about needlework or a verse from a sampler.

The Mainely Needlepoint series is set in the fictional town of Haven Harbor, Maine, located a short drive from Portland.  There are two main characters.  Angela (Angie) Curtis, whose mother disappeared when she was ten (this mystery solved in “Twisted Threads”) and who returned to Haven Harbor after spending 10 years as an assistant to a private investigator in Arizona.  Gram, Angie’s grandmother, is the founder of the Mainely Needlepoint and about to marry a local minister.  Mainely Needlepoint specializes in commissioned needlework pieces for decorators and gift shops and restoration of older needlework.

Thus far, the Mainely Needlepoint Mystery series has a cold case theme.  In “Threads of Evidence,” Angie unravels the mysterious death of Jasmine Gardener, a teenager who died in 1970.  Skye West, a Hollywood starlet, and her son Patrick are restoring the hundred-year-old Gardener mansion.   The story involves staging a yard sale for the mansion’s unwanted contents, an attempted poisoning, a carriage house fire, and several accounts of meals at the lobster dock.

[Author’s Aside:  Food has come to play a prominent part in the storylines of antiques and collectibles cozy mysteries.  Almost every title has one or more recipes in the back.]

If you like the titles in the Mainely Needlepoint Mystery series, consider reading the books in Wait’s “Antique Print Mystery series: “Shadows at the Fair,” “Shadows on the Coast of Maine,” “Shadows on the Ivy,” “Shadows at the Spring Show,” “Shadows of a Down East Summer,” “Shadows on a Cape Cod Wedding,” and “Shadows on a Maine Christmas.”

Donna Lea Simpson (www.donnaleasimpson.com) writing as Victoria Hamilton is the author of A Vintage Kitchen Mystery series and as Amanda Cooper is the author of the Teapot Collector Mysteries (www.victoriahamiltonmysteries.com).  “No Mallets Intended,” published by Berkley Prime Crime/Berkley Publishing Group,” is the latest A Vintage Kitchen Mystery series title.  The central character is Jaymie Leighton, a collector of vintage cookbooks and kitchen wares.  She shares her home with her three-legged Yorkie-Poo, Hopalong.  Jaymie resides in the fictional town of Queensville, Michigan, just south of Heartbreak Island, unique in that it is half in the United States and half in Canada.  Jaymie supports her collecting habit by picking, thus bringing her into contact with a host of characters (what better word to describe those involved in the antiques and collectibles trade).  As the series develops, Jaymie forms a close relationship with Valetta, the postmistress at the Queensville Emporium.  Valetta’s real business is knowing everybody’s business.

In the four books in the A Vintage Kitchen Mysteries series, murder weapons include a cast iron meat grinder removed from a Hoosier cabinet, a Depression glass bowl, an ice pick, and a meat mallet.  Non-lethal antiques and collectibles are found throughout the storyline.  “No Mallets Intended” focuses on the restoration of the historic Dumpe mansion (every pun you can imagine clearly intended).   Other titles in the series are “A Deadly Grind,” “Bowled Over,” and “Freezer I’ll Shoot.”

“Shadow of a Spout” is the second title in the Teapot Collector Mystery series.  It involves a murder that takes place at a New York Regional Chapter’s meeting of the International Teapot Collectors Society.  It is a must read for anyone who belongs to a collectors’ club.

Sophie Taylor, a New York restaurateur whose failed fashionable Manhattan restaurant weighs heavily on her mind, returns to her grandmother’s home in Gracious Grove, New York to escape the big city.  Of course, her grandmother just happens to own Auntie Rose’s Victorian Tea House.  Sophie is surrounded by a host of well developed secondary characters.  My favorite is Thelma Mae Earnshaw, owner of La Belle Èpoque, a rival Victorian Tea House.  Thelma is crusty, ornery, cantankerous, and able to embellish a lie to the point of believability.  She reminds me of a large number of individuals I have encountered in my travels.  Teapots are not the only antiques and collectibles found in this series.  If “Shadow of a Spout” brings pleasure, read “Tempest in a Teapot,” the first book in the series.

Harry L. Rinker welcomes questions from readers about collectibles, those mass-produced items from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.  Selected letters will be answered in this column.  Harry cannot provide personal answers.  Photos and other material submitted cannot be returned.  Send your questions to: Rinker on Collectibles, 5955 Mill Point Court SE, Kentwood, MI  49512.  You also can e-mail your questions to harrylrinker@aol.com. Only e-mails containing a full name and mailing address will be considered.

You can listen and participate in WHATCHA GOT?, Harry’s antiques and collectibles radio call-in show, on Sunday mornings between 8:00 AM and 10:00 AM Eastern Time.  If you cannot find it on a station in your area, WHATCHA GOT? streams live on the Internet at www.gcnlive.com.