[.ca] The Body in the Bookcase: A Faith Fairchild Mystery (ISBN 0380732378)

From Amazon.com:
Katherine Hall Page won an Agatha Award for her first Faith Fairchild mystery, The Body in the Belfry, and since that debut she has developed a rich cast of characters around her beloved amateur sleuth. Now, in her ninth outing, Faith embarks on an adventure that draws from Page's personal experience with the burglary of her home in 1995. A former New Yorker, Faith is settled--or at least settling--into life in the small Massachusetts town of Aleford. Her husband, Tom, is a minister, and Faith feels called to make the rounds of the parish. But her first visit leads to a grim discovery: Sarah Winslow, the town librarian and a collector of antique books, lies dead in her home, tied to a chair. Sarah's house has been pillaged. Only a day after the funeral, Faith returns home to discover her own house has been torn apart, and many of her prize possessions--silver, jewelry, keepsakes--have been stolen, too. Of course, Faith does what any self-respecting minister's wife would do: she begins an investigation that leads her into a market of illegal antiques deals and shady pickers. Along the way she encounters even more murder and mayhem. As with other books in the Faith Fairchild series, one of the graces of the novel is the too-funny-to-not-be-real portrait of New England life. And the culinary components of this mystery once again derive from Ms. Fairchild's catering business, Have Faith. The recipes--from Avocado Bisque to Chocolate Oatmeal Goodies--are presented in tantalizing detail at the close of the book. But you won't be drawn to Page's series just for the food. The Body in the Bookcase serves a brisk mystery populated with a quirky cast of New Englanders you'll be sad to see depart. --Patrick O'Kelley

A mixed bag:
This book has a mixture of strengths and weaknesses. One of the plusses is that it features Faith Fairchild instead of her less interesting neighbor, Pix Miller. However, Pix is totally banished except for one or two brief appearances and this does not seem like a good thing to do to Faith's favorite sidekick. Another plus is the interesting mix of characters, especially Stephanie Bullock, the spoiled young girl whose mother has hired Faith to cater her rehearsal dinner and wedding reception. However, Faith does seem to obsess over the items which are stolen from her house and they seem to hold a more important place in her affections than do her own children who breeze in and out of her life and into the arms of their father, their babysitters and nursery schools. Most young mothers are way too busy with their offspring to spend hours skulking about the countryside investigating murders and robberies. Also the ending is not well conceived and seems too trite. Not the best of the series, but not a bad read for "cozy" fans.

The Body in the Bookcase:
I'm about half-way through this book and I am very disappointed. First of all the title is misleading. The body is not in the bookcase, only the head is, sort of. The head is on the bottom shelf with the body on its side tied to a chair. There also is a lot of unnecessary information and people in the book. The characters are two dimensional and I got no feeling of suspense, thrill, or am I even interested in "who-done-it". I don't think it's a "who-done-it" plot. I'm left to wonder if The Body in the Fjord is really in the Fjord or just has a hand trailing in the frigid water. Try, try again, but read some more mysteries, do, Ms. Katherine Hall Page. p.s. the british authors are the best!

Entertaining.:
THE BODY IN THE BOOKCASE is fun. It's very reminiscent of the Diana Mott Davidson culinary mysteries -- and not just because of the recipes. The style is very similar. I'm not sure which number this is in the Faith Fairchild series, but it's copyrighted 1998. And it's my first. It's about the theft of antiques, and one dead body leads to another as our protagonist tries to recover some of her stolen property. The characters are fun and believable. The author creates no sense of place at all, geographically, but does create a sense of community. Not the most satisfying mystery I've ever read, but entertaining. I'm in possesion of two different versions of this book. To help you with your purchasing decision, here's a comparison: One has a green cover with a gold letter opener. This is an Avon Twilight book, first printed in 1999. At the end it has excerpts of about two pages each from five other mystery series. The other is an Avon Book, first printed March 2001. It has a gray cover with red and black letters. It has larger print (but not "large print"), so the book is thicker. It has excerpts of about two pages each from nine other books in this same series.

Depressing--none of the "cozy" charm I value:
I have enjoyed the Faith Fairchild/Pix Miller series, which made this book a great disapointment. I only read about of half, before I gave it up. I think, prehaps, making Faith a victim was too close to home. It is natural that she wanted her things back, but the book focused on her distress to the detriment of the more attractive, cozy atmosphere I found so pleasant in the rest of the series.