β Scribed by Allan, Barbara
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
As autumn splashes color across the small Mississippi River town of Serenity, newly divorced Brandy Borne is on the brink of going crazy after her ever-impossible mother quits the local theater group. She comes up with a brilliant idea for preserving her sanity and keeping Mother busy: open their own booth at the new antiques mall in town. But they are about to cross paths with a killer...
Brandy, along with Sushi, her spoiled Shih Tzu, pays a visit to the town's Chief of Police to ask about federal auctions of confiscated goods, a little-known source of great antiques and collectibles. Her buys at her first auction in Rockford, Illinois turn out to be a success. On the other hand, her first visit from ten-year-old son Jake, who has been living with his father, turns out to be a challenge.
While Halloween looms large on the horizon, things turn grim when a body is found at the antiques mall. To the cops, the case seems pretty clear cut: the victim's dog, the normally good-natured Brad Pit Bull, mauled its owner to death. But Brandy knows her canines, and this dog has definitely been framed.
Brandy and Mother are soon snooping into nooks, crannies, and cubbyholes while stepping on assorted toes. As All Hallow's Eve shenanigans grow increasingly frightening, true terror unmasks itself when Jacob goes missing. Is his disappearance just a childish prank? Or are sinister forces bubble-bubble-toiling trouble in Serenity?
Now Brandy and her over-the-top mom are on the hunt to find Jake before a devious killer mauls again...
π SIMILAR VOLUMES
### From Publishers Weekly In this jumbled sequel to _Antiques Roadkill_ (2006), Allan (the pseudonymous husband-and-wife writing team of Max Allan and Barbara Collins) burdens a simple whodunit with too much sentimental ornament. Recent divorcΓ©e Brandy Borne has her hands full with her aging, scat