Search - Tight As a Tick (Laura Fleming)

Barbara R. (Crop4Fun) reviewed 3/13/2007...
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Publisher's Note
Laura Fleming and her husband Richard are back in Byerly, and Laura thinks it's going to be a relaxed trip. After all, there are no funerals, no family reunions, and no weddings to attend. She should have known better. Before they've even unpacked, Aunt Maggie is telling them about last weekend's murder...

Industry reviews
When a group of Byerly, North Carolina, flea-market dealers discover the body of a mean and petty-minded knife seller, distress signals go out to the inept local police. Independent Aunt Maggie, who sells glassware, asks visiting great-niece Laurie Anne Fleming and husband (Country Come to Town, Kensington, 1996) for help. Laurie and Richard, disguised as potential dealers, find plenty of people with motive including Aunt Maggie. Decidedly homey characters, country charm, and an upbeat tone should make this a popular choice. Recommended.
Scheeren

As she did in Country Comes to Town (1996), Kelner pins a humorous mystery on the contrast between Yankee and Southern habits. This time out, Boston's Laura Fleming and her husband, Richard, a professor, are visiting her relatives in Byerly, N.C., where Laura's great-aunt Maggie maintains a weekend booth at the Tight As a Tick Flea Market. The visit turns nasty when the body of Carney Alexander, the knife dealer in the booth next to Maggie's, is found dead under the sheet used to cover his wares when the market is closed. After the police decide it was a random killing, Maggie calls on her niece to solve the crime. Laura, of course, takes the bait. Going undercover as prospective flea market dealers, she and Richard get to know the other vendors and ask questions about the unpopular Carney. They discover a slew of potential suspects, each with a reason for hating the knife dealer, who, among other things, called the health department to report that the tattoo artist used dirty needles and the dwarf's concession stand was infested with bugs. Laura feels she's getting nowhere, but when a busybody dealer who looks from the back a lot like Aunt Maggie is knocked unconscious, she and Richard burrow deeper, finally solving the crimes. Kelner's Laura is an enjoyable, gently sarcastic narrator whose amusement at the down-home style of rural Byerly will be shared by most readers.