Dolled Up for MurderDeb Baker
Berkley Prime Crime
Reviewed by Diane Kasperski
This was a very good debut of a new mystery series. Gretchen Birch
comes from a family of very lively women. All of them are crazy, wildly
impulsive and very disorganized. Gretchen puts this down to a “renegade
gene passed down through generations of Birch women”.
Gretchen gets a call from her Aunt Nina in
the wee hours of the morning telling her she has to come home to
Phoenix because her Mom is missing. She even went so far as to book her
a flight at 7am. Caroline Birch is a doll collector and belongs to the
Phoenix Dollers. She often goes off to an auction or the hunt for an
antique doll without telling anyone. Gretchen wasn’t really worried but
she couldn’t say ‘no’ to her Aunt.
Martha, a homeless drunk, use-to-be doll
collector was murdered. That same day Caroline disappears. She takes a
flight out of town. The police think she is running away. Why else
would she take off right after the murder? At one time Martha owned one
of the most prestigious, grandest, antique doll collections in the
country. After she lost her home and all her belongings it was a
mystery as to what happened to the collection. She hadn’t sold it.
Where was it?
While Gretchen is in Phoenix trying to figure
out exactly what happened to Martha and where her mother could be,
Caroline is off trying to find a doll and win it on an eBay auction.
She wants to trap “The Inspector” who has already sold one of the dolls
in Martha’s collection. She knows that if she doesn’t succeed she will
die.
The clues are leading Gretchen to all kinds
of suspects in the doll collecting community. In the meantime Matt
Albright, a local detective is convinced that Caroline pushed Martha
off the mountain. It’s a race to see who will succeed - Caroline - Matt
- Gretchen - the unknown Inspector?
The characters in Dolled Up for Murder
are great. They range from the eccentric Aunt Nina to the homeless man
Macho Nacho. The story line flows and keeps you turning pages
throughout. I am looking forward to the next Doll Collectors/Birch
Women mystery.