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Book Reviews of The Dead Cat Bounce (Home Repair is Homicide, Bk 1)

The Dead Cat Bounce (Home Repair is Homicide, Bk 1)
The Dead Cat Bounce - Home Repair is Homicide, Bk 1
Author: Sarah Graves
ISBN-13: 9780553578577
ISBN-10: 055357857X
Publication Date: 9/1/1998
Pages: 336
Rating:
  • Currently 3.6/5 Stars.
 170

3.6 stars, based on 170 ratings
Publisher: Bantam
Book Type: Paperback
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

24 Book Reviews submitted by our Members...sorted by voted most helpful

algernon99 avatar reviewed The Dead Cat Bounce (Home Repair is Homicide, Bk 1) on + 418 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 8
Series set in Eastport, Maine. My wife and I both enjoyed this book. It has a little more substance and depth than most of the run-of-the-mill cozies, and makes for a more satisfying experience. We recommend it.
reviewed The Dead Cat Bounce (Home Repair is Homicide, Bk 1) on + 39 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 6
The first in a series of cozies. Jacobia Tiptree and her teenage son have purchased a fixer upper on a remote Maine island. And like Jessica Fletcher, they seem to find corpses around every corner...Well written and fun.
poodlelov avatar reviewed The Dead Cat Bounce (Home Repair is Homicide, Bk 1) on + 48 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
Great starting book to a great series. Loved it and keep me guessing up to the end. Bravo
reviewed The Dead Cat Bounce (Home Repair is Homicide, Bk 1) on + 19 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
Good mystery, well written and engrossing. I really enjoyed it!
reviewed The Dead Cat Bounce (Home Repair is Homicide, Bk 1) on + 131 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
Jacoba Tiptree is back again solving another murder in the small town of Eastport Maine. With all the work she has facing her to restore the old house she bought, she really doesn't have time for sleuthing but when she finds a body in her storeroom and then her best friend confesses to the murder, she really doesn't have much choice. She knows Ellie White didn't kill anyone and sets out to prove it. Ellie is covering up for someone she is sure, but who and why. Someone doesn't want her prying into this murder and lets her know by setting her house afire, sending threatening notes and other accidents. Along with all this her ex is in town threatening to take her son away from her. What else can happen? You will have to read this one to find out.
reviewed The Dead Cat Bounce (Home Repair is Homicide, Bk 1) on + 71 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
It's one of a good series; anyone who ever bought a fixer-upper will appreciate her home travails.
AldersgateBooks avatar reviewed The Dead Cat Bounce (Home Repair is Homicide, Bk 1) on + 33 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
This first book in a series promises some good reading in Home Repair is Homicide. A cozy mystery with a little more depth than most, interesting characters, and funny too. Dead Cat Bounce is a great story.
reviewed The Dead Cat Bounce (Home Repair is Homicide, Bk 1) on + 426 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Loved the start and setting of this new series. As other reviewers mentioned, it had a lot of meat to it which involved you immediately.

Love the characters...looking forward to book two.
reviewed The Dead Cat Bounce (Home Repair is Homicide, Bk 1) on + 5 more book reviews
I have read all of sarah graves so far - very enjoyable. good plot
reviewed The Dead Cat Bounce (Home Repair is Homicide, Bk 1) on + 20 more book reviews
This is the first book in her series, not as good as the others but still pretty good
reviewed The Dead Cat Bounce (Home Repair is Homicide, Bk 1) on + 28 more book reviews
a really fun murder mystery which takes place in Eastport ME
reviewed The Dead Cat Bounce (Home Repair is Homicide, Bk 1) on + 10 more book reviews
Read about the author in the New York Times. A fun read. I will be searching for more.
bibliocat avatar reviewed The Dead Cat Bounce (Home Repair is Homicide, Bk 1) on + 76 more book reviews
Very good story... lots of interesting characters
reviewed The Dead Cat Bounce (Home Repair is Homicide, Bk 1) on + 286 more book reviews
Both my daughter and I agreed this is a good series; we plan to catch up on the ones we've missed.
reviewed The Dead Cat Bounce (Home Repair is Homicide, Bk 1) on + 336 more book reviews
good mystery cozy...
reviewed The Dead Cat Bounce (Home Repair is Homicide, Bk 1) on + 99 more book reviews
Pretty easy mystery to figure out, don't know if I read author again.
reviewed The Dead Cat Bounce (Home Repair is Homicide, Bk 1) on + 136 more book reviews
This was good. A new series for me and I will definitely read more!
reviewed The Dead Cat Bounce (Home Repair is Homicide, Bk 1) on + 20 more book reviews
Kinda slow and drawn out but not bad. Willing to giving book #2 a try.
reviewed The Dead Cat Bounce (Home Repair is Homicide, Bk 1) on + 20 more book reviews
A great mystery, first in a series.
Spuddie avatar reviewed The Dead Cat Bounce (Home Repair is Homicide, Bk 1) on + 412 more book reviews
Note that this review refers to the audio version.

#1 Home Repair is Homicide mystery featuring Jacobia "Jake" Tiptree in Eastport, Maine. Jacobia is a former financial adviser who lived in New York and had some pretty high-flying clients--including some unsavory 'connected' folks. A year ago, she decided to abandon the rat race and bought a 200-year-old house in Eastport, Maine and moved in with her teenage son Sam. Since then, her life has been one big instruction book in how to fix up her house, and it's not been easy. Still, she's made a few friends and seems to be settling in relatively well, even though she's "from away."

She certainly doesn't expect to find a dead body in her storeroom--especially not the body of one of the world's richest men! Nor would she have expected her best friend Ellie White to be arrested for the murder, but Ellie's confessed. It's up to Jake to figure out who Ellie is protecting--since they have a confession, the cops don't seem especially eager to do a lot of investigating themselves.

I enjoyed this book on many levels, but I did find the reader to be somewhat annoying. She did really well with the different accents, especially that Maine 'down East' twang, but her way of reading and the tone of the book gave Jake a really superior-sounding attitude which grated on my nerves. I'm going to try the next in series in print and see if that makes a difference.

If the author intended the main character to have this air of smug superiority, I'm not sure I'll continue on much longer. Most of the immediate secondary characters were interesting and beginning to flesh out well, including Jake's pompous brain surgeon ex-husband (he sounds so much like a neurosurgeon I used to work with, it's not even funny!) and her son Sam is a real treat, so I'm hoping I like the print version better.
reviewed The Dead Cat Bounce (Home Repair is Homicide, Bk 1) on + 44 more book reviews
The first in theries and a very entertaining read.
horseyperson avatar reviewed The Dead Cat Bounce (Home Repair is Homicide, Bk 1) on + 38 more book reviews
I couldn't get into this book.

Debbie G.
reviewed The Dead Cat Bounce (Home Repair is Homicide, Bk 1) on + 111 more book reviews
Since she bought her rambling old fixer-upper of a house, Jacobia Tiptree has gotten used to finding things broken. But her latest problem isn't so easily repaired. Along with the rotting floor joists and sagging support beams there's the little matter of the dead man in Jake's storeroom, an ice pick firmly planted in his cranium.
Not much happens in her tiny Maine town, but that's about to change. Jake's unknown guest turns out to be a world-famous corporate raider, local boy turned billionaire Threnody Mcllwaine. When Jake's best friend, quiet and dependable Ellie White, readily confesses to the murder, cops and journalists swarm into snowbound Eastport.
Jake smells a cover-up and begins poking into past history between Mcllwaine and Ellie's family. But someone doesn't like nosy neighbors...and Jake's rustic refuge may become her final resting place.
reviewed The Dead Cat Bounce (Home Repair is Homicide, Bk 1) on + 144 more book reviews
Different cover, same book. Home repair and murder. Jacobia Tiptree is not only good at fixing things around the house, but solving murders as well.