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The
Wrong Stuff by Sharon Fiffer Rating: •• (Mildly
Recommended) |
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title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
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Wheeling My
first taste of Sharon Fiffer’s writing is her new
book, The
Wrong Stuff. the latest mystery in her Jane
Wheel series. Wheel is an unfocused antique picker and her cluttered and
distracted life can become an irritant for those of us who are somewhat more
organized or focused. A good mystery presents clues with care, and leaves
few, if any, holes in the story. Fiffer leaves more
holes, and her clues are clumsy, but her writing is usually fine enough to
keep readers turning pages. Here’s an excerpt from the beginning of Chapter 3
(pp. 33-38): How
many pairs of shoes do you own? Don’t check yet. Got the number? Now go to
your closet and count. Twice as many? Three times as many? Why do you own
what you can't even remember you have? —BELINDA ST. GBRMAIN, 0verstuffed "A
beautiful fake," said Claire, “but a fake nonetheless." Jane
looked back and forth from Claire’s eyes to the drawer pulls and the
sunflower carvings and shook her head. "I'd bet my . . . ,"Jane
began to say. Claire stopped her. "Don't. You’d
lose it." She came back around the front of the chest and pulled out the
drawer. "You can see where they aged the wood, but it's a little too
even, too neat. Dovetails are all large and too perfect. Look how it
fits," Claire
slid the drawer back in place, "Perfect, isn't it?" asked
Jane, "Yes," Claire said. "It
shouldn't be though. A drawer from an authentic piece wouldn't go all the way
in, wouldn't be such a perfect fit. There would be more ventilation space
left at the back. There are other clues, too. . . ." Bruce Oh, who had quietly brought in a
tray with coffee, set it down and motioned for Jane to come over and sit. "Claire
rarely makes mistakes," he said. "But when I do . . . ,"
Claire said, letting the thought trail. "If Mrs. Wheel is going to help .
. . ," said Oh. Lost in the land of
ellipses, thought Jane. Somebody better finish a sentence
around here, "What is it you think I can . . .
?"Jane began to ask. Claire cleared her throat and
straightened herself to her full six plus feet. Jane had always mistrusted
people that tall. The truth was, and she knew it, she was jealous. Jane
worried that the tall were able to see everything she, as the smaller than
average, missed; dust on top of the refrigerator, cobwebs on the ceiling, the
frailties of the human heart. Right now, even though Claire Oh was clearly in
distress, Jane was certain she would never lose her keys, mismatch her socks,
or mislay a permission slip. "I called my helper, Stanley, to
bring the truck over, and we loaded up the chest together. I kept it here, at
home, in the garage. Horace came to see it. He agreed with me that it was a Westman—or the closest thing we were ever going to find.
Wrote me a check for a deposit, and I told him I'd drive it up to Campbell
and LaSalle myself for the cleaning and restoration." Claire looked Jane over from top to
bottom. "Do you know about Campbell and LaSalle?" she asked. Jane
was surprised at how thoroughly she resented Claire Oh’s
question. Yes, she was a picker not a dealer, and yes, she liked the old and
worn more than the old and precious, and yes, she was wearing a boxy, vintage
wool jacket over a pair of skinny jeans instead of the slim, gray Armani
skirt and silk blouse that Claire was wearing. Yes, even after some jail
time, Claire Oh had the dealer look, the
I-know-the-value-of-everything-you’ve-ever-touched look, and yes, she had on Manolo Blahnik heels, too, but
did that give her the right to assume Jane would not know that Campbell and
LaSalle were the premiere restorers/refinishers/rebuilders
in the country? Just because the jewelry Jane was sporting was a Bakelite pin
with dangling butterscotch cherries instead of the forties Carrier diamond
watch that Claire wore on her left wrist? Jane reminded herself that she
really liked Bruce Oh, and he had asked her to come and talk to Claire, "Who is Horace?" Jane asked, "Horace Cutlers a dealer in fine
European antiques. This wasn't his cup of tea, but he had a buyer. Everyone
was going to make something on this," Claire said, patting the surface
of the chest. Everyone but the
owner, Jane thought, but didn't say anything out loud. After all,
would she refuse if someone running an estate sale gave her something? Just
asked her to haul it away? No. But what if she thought the something was something?
Would she tell? "I checked it in with one of the
carpenters at Campbell and LaSalle and told him I wanted the minimum amount
of work done. Clean it up, put it back together, save the age, you know, the
patina," Claire said. Jane nodded. She and her pal, Tim, when
out of earshot and sight of Charley and Nick, played a pretend game. Tim
would link his arm though Jane's at a flea market, and they would discuss
their imaginary daughter, little Patina. "Would Patina like a little
dressing table for her room?" "ls Patina still collecting poodles?" Tim
always said that as soon as he met the right man, they'd get themselves a
poodle and name it Patinajust to satisfy all of his
"They want me drooling over Liza and nibbling quiche," Tim had said the last
time Jane was in the store. "If they saw me with you, eating a pizza,
drinking a beer, and not ratcheting my voice up to an octave above Q
for queen, they'd go back to buying their flowers at the Jewel" "I drove up to Bruce Oh, silent for so long, went over
to his wife and patted her hand, which, Jane realized, was moving a bit
obsessively over the carving. He led her over to the couch, and when she had
sat. Oh took up the story. "Mrs. Wheel, you’ve been at shows
like that. The first night is a benefit. Well-dressed people, drinking
champagne, an elegant evening. Mr. Cutlers screaming cut through the crowd
like a knife." "What
happened?" asked Jane. "Security came and escorted him
out," said Claire. "Here was this elegant little man, dressed in an
impeccable suit, yelling like a crazy person. Said his credibility with his
customer was ruined. Shouted that he'd get even. He actually said
he'd"—Claire stopped for just a second, swallowed, and
continued—"he said he'd kill me for this." "My god, what did you say?" "Not if I kill you first."
Claire shook her head. "I was being flippant, of course. I'm regretting
the bravado now. "I returned a few cases to my
booth at the antique mall that night like I always do so they could be locked
in the safe I keep there, just jewelry and a few smalls. The back door was
locked. I let myself in and there was a light on near my booth. Horace was
there. Dead on the Kilim rug, right in front of the
Pembroke table. "How did you know he was
dead?" "The lack of breathing, the pool
of blood, the seven-inch blade with the carved bone handle sticking out of his
chest," Claire said, shrugging. "The dagger was a tip-off of
sorts." Oh again laid his hand on his wife's. "I'm sorry," she said.
"I've had a very bad day." "Its okay," said Jane,
thinking she had been right about tall people. They were supercilious and got
away with it because they could see farther than the average joe—or jane. "But
what about the timing of all this? How long had he been dead? Did you call
the police right away?" "The police walked in right after
me. The alarm had been tripped. I turned it off before I came in, but it had
rung at the police station because of a front window being tampered
with," Claire said/it was a scene from a television program. I was
kneeling over the body of a man that at least thirty well-dressed, reliable witnesses
had heard me say I'd kill" "Network," Jane said, looking
past Claire, locking eyes with Bruce Oh, Oh looked at her blankly. "Last scene before the first
commercial break," Jane said. "Network television program."
She shook her head. "Not even HBO" Fiffer’s writing keeps readers engaged, but holes in the
plot and clumsy clues, combined with Jane Wheel’s distractability,
can infuriate mystery lovers who decide to read The Wrong
Stuff. Steve
Hopkins, January 22, 2004 |
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ã 2004 Hopkins and Company, LLC The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the February 2004
issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/The
Wrong Stuff.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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