Antiques Roadkill: A Trash 'n' Treasures Mystery

by Barbara Allan

Book Overview

Brandy Borne arrives back in her hometown on the banks of the Mississippi to find that an unscrupulous antiques dealer, Clint Carson, has swindled her mother, Vivian, out of the family heirlooms. When... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0758211929
• Release Date: July 2007
• Publisher: Kensington
• Length: 287 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.7" x 0.8" x 4.1"

Customer Reviews

Great Series

I enjoyed this book and the others written by Barbara Allen very much! The main character and other characters, such as her mother were absolutely hilarious!!!I highly recomend this book to anyone who likes a book you just can't put down. I hope she continues to give us many more books in the future

Great escape

Great book for a quick escape. It's a good series for those who like a mystery with a lot of fun included.

Okay...but...

I liked much of this book. The characters were fresh and funny. They were similar in many ways to those of Janet Evanovich and Sarah Shankman. The mystery was mysterious enough for a light summer or a snowy winter read. I love antiquing, so the theme was interesting to me. My only problem was with the authors' overuse of some writing elements. I did not like the number of asides in parentheses. They were cute at first, but interrupted the flow of the story too many times. I was also amused by the description of how the mother's eyes were magnified by her thick eyeglass lenses, but became annoyed when this was repeated over and over again throughout the book. 15 or maybe 20 times? These may seem like petty complaints, but the repetition of these devices became very irritating I almost stopped reading halfway through the book. It was like listening to water dripping in a sink. As I continued, their style became less contrived and much more enjoyable. These are obviously two creative and talented writers. I must say that I read the first chapter of their second book, which was included at the end of the paperback, and cringed at yet another mention of those darn magnified eyes!

Good writing overcomes initially unlikable protagonist

With the breakup of her marriage (due to a one-night drunken mistake at a high school reunion), Brandy Borne and her blind Shih Tzu move back in with her mother--a woman who is colorful in the best of times and disturbed (and disturbing) when she's off her medication. During the last incident when she'd been off her medication, her mother had sold a lifetime's collection of antiques to an unscrupulous dealer for a few hundred dollars. Now Brandy has to figure out how to get her life back together, while attending the mother-daughter day at the red hat society, getting together with old friends (unfortunately including the woman whose husband was the other participant in the reunion mistake), and dealing with Brandy's much older (and painfully perfect) sister, Peggy Sue. After a name-calling fight with the antiques dealer at the red hat meeting, Brandy gets a late-night message to meet with him. Her mother picked up the message first and headed out (without a drivers license) running over the dealer. Abruptly, Brandy's life turns downward, with former friends turning away from her and with a repeated series of near-misses on Brandy's life. The author team writing as Barbara Allan combine some laugh-out-loud situations with antiques advice and small town sleuthing in a promising first mystery. Although Brandy comes off unsympathetically at first, with her not-especially regretful attitude toward her affair, her confrontational posture toward the dealer without giving him a chance to explain himself, and her hateful relationship with her sister, I found that she grew on me as the book continued--of course, putting her in near-death situations would have this effect. Allan does a good job managing the suspense level, mixing humor with dangerous situations and keeping the reader involved. A fast easy-to-read style helps as well. The town of Serenity, with its colorful population and its wealth of interesing buildings and people, adds to the story's interest.

lighthearted antiques whodunit

Brandy Borne is not sure if she is on antidepressant medicine because of her recent divorce or returning to her hometown of Serenity, overlooking the Mississippi River, to live with her unhinged Red Hat mother Vivian and her social airs elitist wannabe sister Peggy Sue. However, adding to Brandy's depression is that her mom, under some powerful meds, sold family antique furniture to an unprincipled dealer, Clint Carson, for almost nothing. Irate Vivian confronts Carson over his conning a mentally deficient person, but the dealer says legally he provided the consideration in terms of the agreed upon compensation. Not long after her public outrage towards Carson, someone runs him over on a remote country lane near the dealer's farmhouse. Local law enforcement feels Brandy has the motive making her the prime suspect with the only other person of interest being her mother, who may have been motivated by her daughter's tantrum. Brandy thinks otherwise as the list of people wanting to kill Carson is much of the county, but especially a horde of senior citizens he cheated just like he did her mom. Brandy and Vivian high on medicine investigate as neither trust the cops to be thorough, but there are warnings from much of their neighbors to back off as no one wants the secretes of not so Serenity revealed. Amateur sleuth fans will enjoy traipsing around Serenity looking for a valuable antique amongst someone's garbage as much as observing Brandy and Vivian tripping over one another seeking to uncover the identity of the killer. During their detecting the two women unearth many of their neighbors' skeletons, which is why so many tell the Borne duo to back down. Fans will enjoy this lighthearted antiques whodunit with Brandy's side tips on collecting a bonus. Harriet Klausner