Book Review:

Dead Guy's Stuff

by Sharon Fiffer

St. Martin's 2002

This year, for Valentine's Day, skip the candy and flowers, and buy your antique loving sweetie a good murder mystery starring some really cool stuff!

Once again, Sharon Fiffer proves she's a card carrying member of the Estate Sale Shoppers union.  In her second novel, Dead Guy's Stuff, Fiffer further explores the psychology of the picker, in this case, Jane Wheel, who we met in Fiffer's first novel, Killer Stuff, but she could easily be describing me.  Or you!

Jane loves the thrill of the hunt; the tantalizing promise of an old, locked suitcase or a sealed box in a dusty attic, but what she really loves is the rich vein of back stories behind the objects, which she happily makes up when necessary. Fiffer pokes gentle fun at her heroines possibly obsessive compulsive picking techniques that include a lucky mechanical pencil for note taking, and a photographer's safari vest with exacting specifications for locations of cash, checkbook, keys, tape measure and notebook.

Jane is charming, and you have to love her best friend, Tim, a gay, antique dealing florist, who revels in his caricature-hood.  Tim has a good eye and a sharp tongue and is free with both.  Dead Guy's Stuff is a mystery complete with murder, burglary, blackmail, high cholesterol, and very cool stuff.