Sunday, December 31, 2017

A Dollhouse to Die For: Mini-Review

This is probably my last review of 2017--and I'm afraid that Cate Price's A Dollhouse to Die For is going to get short shrift...I've got monthly and yearly wrap-up posts to do and planning how to start my reading year with a bang....

So...the synopsis from the book:  Daisy Buchanan thinks of her shop, Sometimes a Great Notion, as more than just a business. For her, it’s a haven of vintage sewing notions and other treasures, excellent coffee, and camaraderie. But when an antique dollhouse provokes some bizarre behavior on the part of a customer, Daisy makes it her business to find out what secrets are hidden behind its tiny doors…

At an estate auction, Daisy is delighted to find the perfect present for a young girl she knows—a charming dollhouse in need of restoration. But when local collector Harriet Kunes tries to strong-arm Daisy into selling it, she’s in for a shocking—and deadly—surprise.

After an intruder breaks in and tries to steal the dollhouse, Daisy wonders why everyone has developed such an obsession over it. As she builds her collection of clues, she suspects that the miniature Victorian holds the key to a second unsolved murder, and soon she stumbles across much more than she bid on…


Me again:
And Daisy isn't the only one in danger.  Harriet is found dead...electrocuted by faulty wiring in her own vintage dollhouse. But when Daisy's husband Joe and the detective on the case investigate, they discover that the circuit breaker which should have saved her life was also tampered with. A clear case of murder. Who would have thought that dollhouse collecting could be such a deadly hobby?

Cate Price writes a fun, cozy series and Daisy, her husband, and their friends are all likeable characters. And I enjoy how Price drops information related to the book's theme (dollhouses, here) into the story without it feeling like a lecture or an info-dump. She has found an interesting way to use hobbies and collecting as a focus for a mystery series that provides light entertainment with fairly good clueing. ★★

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