Adult Mysteries
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Shadows at the Spring Show: An Antique Print Mystery
Shadows on the Ivy: An Antique Print Mystery
SHADOWS AT THE SPRING SHOW
ISBN: 0743249518 (Scribner) or 0743475593 (Pocket Books)
Maggie Summer, antique print dealer, community college professor, and prospective single adoptive parent, has volunteered to run an antiques show to benefit a local adoption agency. But when threatening letters and phone calls disrupt Maggie's carefully-laid plans, she begins to fear for her own safety. Someone doesn't want the show to go on, and Maggie has to find out why.
Set in quiet Somerset County, New Jersey, SHADOWS AT THE SPRING SHOW brings together antique dealers and college friends introduced in earlier SHADOWS books, while tackling thorny issues of race, heritage and personal identity. And, of course, Maggie finds the killer through a clue in her antique prints.
Critics Say:
"With Lea Wait's hand-on-knowledge,colorful cast, and deft handling of both antiques and issues such as mixed-race families and single parent adoption, this is a superb addition to an already acclaimed series."
"With complex crimes and even more complex personal decisions for Maggie Summer, antique print dealer and history professor, the fourth installment of Wait's cozy series doesn't disappoint. Since Maggie is thinking about adopting a child, she volunteers to organize an antiques fair, the proceeds of which will go to support a local New Jersey adoption agency. Everything is running smoothy until the adoption agency begins receiving threatening letters -- cancel the show, or else. Meanwhile, Holly Sloane, a saintly woman who's adopted 11 children, is shot, and one of her adoptive sons goes missing. Are the threatening letters and the shooting connected? Maggie must also ask herself some hard questions about her future. Her beau, Will Brewer, is a dreamboat, but he doesn't want to be a dad. Maggie knows that if she adopts their romance will stagnate or end. Kudos to Wait for tackling a presing social issue like adoption: she's never heavy-handed, and she just might inspire some readers to think about opening their homes to children in need." --- Publishers Weekly, June 13, 2005
"It's hard to praise too highly Wait's skill at plotting, her ability at building suspense (as one wonders if the threats to destroy the show will prove true), and her ability to make so many diverse characters come alive ... When the bigotry behind the threats and the murder is revealed, the reader (to Wait's credit) is both appalled and understanding."
--- Mystery Scene Magazine, Fall, 2005
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SHADOWS ON THE IVY
by Lea Wait |
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SHADOWS ON THE IVY
Scribner 2004 ISBN 074324950X or PocketBooks 0743475585
Maggie Summer -- antique print dealer, professor and sleuth -- returns in a spirited and suspenseful new installment in the Agatha-nominated Antique Print Mystery series.
Somerset County College may not be Ivy league, but it is dedicated to its students and proud of its new dormitory for single parents. When two of those students are poisoned, Maggie sets out to uncover the truth beneath layers of academic intrique.
What are the histories of these single parents? Why did the new wife of a wealthy college benefactor go to such lengths to establish the new dormitory? Was her husband a bit too involved with the young single mothers? What of the others -- the history professor hired because of someone he knew? The college president who will do anything to protect his school's reputation?
The answers may lie in the antique prints Maggie sells and uses in class to illustrate myths in American history. And while she is torn between her own needs and those of her students, this time around the most important discoveries she makes are about herself.
Critics Say ...
"If you are a fan of murder mysteries or antique prints you will find a lot to enjoy in this novel ...the antiquing situations sound true to life ... locations most dealers would be familiar with. I started it Friday night and finished it by mid-morning Saturday." -- AntiqueWeek
"Enjoyable ...Wait's knowledge of antique prints and American culture will entertain and educate readers."-- Publishers Weekly
"Maggie Summers does a nice New Jersey-based business in vintage prints and lithographs in a series by Lea Wait. Although she's usually tearing up and down the Eastern Seaboard covering New England antiques fairs, Maggie pretty much stays put in SHADOWS ON THE IVY, running her shop, teaching her classes at Somerset College and trying to figure out who is poisoning her students. But that doesn't mean Maggie doesn't get around. Her course on "Myths in American Culture" goes back in time to the days when woodcuts and hand engravings were an important source for news, and her lectures on the racist magery of 19th century prints are hot stuff. Wait, who runs an antique print businesss of her own, not only loves her field, she also makes it fresh and relevant." --- Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times
"If you like mysteries served up with gentility rather than gore, Lea Wait has a new book for you ....Wait has a durable heroine in Maggie Summer ....Summer may yet become a new Miss Marple for a new time." --- Nancy Grape, Maine Sunday Telegram
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SHADOWS ON THE COAST OF MAINE
by Lea Wait |
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SHADOWS ON THE COAST OF MAINE: AN ANTIQUE PRINT MYSTERY
Scribner 2003 or PocketBooks 0743456211
ISBN: 0-7432-3600-9
Ghosts? An unexplained fire? An attic treasure? A body in the back field? Maggie Summer's visit to an old college friend who has just moved to Maine takes a series of unexpected turns as a small coastal town becomes the background for the second in the Shadows Antique print mystery series.
Maggie's hopes for a romantic future with fellow antique dealer Will Brewer are complicated when she finds that the house causing her friend Amy so many problems actually is Will's ancestral home. And some of those ancestors ... and his living relatives ... are not happy that the house is now owned by someone out of the family for the first time since 1774.
Maggie and Will talk antiques, attend a country auction, and find a clue to one of the mysteries facing Amy and Drew in a Winslow Homer print ...
But will Maggie be able to answer the real questions ... who killed Will's cousin, Crystal? and who was the father of Crystal's unborn child? before someone else is hurt.
Suspense, mystery, and antique prints ... Shadows on the Coast of Maine
A MYSTERY GUILD "EDITOR'S SELECTION"!!
CRITICS SAY ....
"When Crystal is found murdered and pregnant, Maggie must untangle the
family histories of the Brewers and the Douglasses to identify the truth, as
the redecorated haunted house muffles the raw anxieties of its Gothic predecessors and the scandals resonate ..." -- Kirkus Reviews
"It's a story many who move to Maine have heard -- and more than a few
have experienced. Life in Maine seems perfect, dreamy, until the many realities
of rural life take hold. It's not always easy to mask one's trailing fears and
insecurities in the openness of a small town ... no matter how much good will
and innocent enthusiasm you have for your new life, the town's watchful eyes are
not always friendly. For Amy and Drew disaster doesn't so much strike as
unfold, one questionable decision at a time ... it's not long before the couple's
renovation concerns get overshadowed by other issues, namely, a body
discovered in the field behind the Douglas home ... there are vague reasons for
several members of the ever-widening circle around Amy and Drew to have done
the deed -- but are there reasons enough? Wait knows her old Maine houses
and the power of the home in rural Maine. She also knows the ripplying tremors
former inhabitants seem to leave within the walls of such homes. 'Shadows on
the Coast of Maine' is a breezy page-turner, filled with engaging references to
Maine and the antique print business ... fun and compelling summer mystery..."
-- Portland (Maine) Sunday Telegram.
"Wait charmingly attends to the delightful business of going to auctions and
uncovering a Colonial-era kitchen fireplace -- among other entertaining things
Maggie does when she visits a friend and discovers that she and her husband
are beset with more than the usual problems of remodeling an old house. But
whenever Maggie can tear herself away from such pesky distractions as
mysterious fires, phantom babies crying in the night, and the body of a teenager
out behind the barn, she applies her knowledge of antique documents to
illuminate fascinating secrets of local legend."
-- The New York Times Book Review
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| Fireplace in Lea's 1774 home, the original fireplace in SHADOWS ON THE COAST OF MAINE |
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| Shadows at the Fair by Lea Wait |
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SHADOWS AT THE FAIR was a finalist for the prestigious AGATHA AWARD for Best First Traditional Mystery in 2002!
SHADOWS AT THE FAIR: AN ANTIQUE PRINT MYSTERY
by Lea Wait
SCRIBNER ISBN 0743225538 or Pocket Books 0743456203
Just as John Dunning combined the rare book world and murder in Booked to Die, this debut mystery series brings together antique prints and unexplained homicides.
Six antique print dealers have died recently under suspicious circumstances, so it’s no surprise security is high when recently widowed Maggie Summer arrives Friday afternoon to set up her booth of antique prints at the Rensselaer Country Spring Antiques Fair. But despite the precautions another antique dealer dies mysteriously that night, and a young friend of Maggie’s, who has Down Syndrome, becomes the prime suspect.
With the fair closing Sunday, Maggie has only 48 hours to find the real killer. In the meantime she has prints to sell, relationships to uncover, and even a possible new romance to savor.
Maggie can’t shake the feeling that her prints contain an important message. They depict fascinating images of the past, but do they offer a window to the present as well?
Maggie soon discovers she’s not just an expert on prints; she’s a pretty good detective, too.
Lea Wait, a fourth generation antiques dealer, has written a book crackling with suspense, intrigue, and authenticity.
CRITICS SAY .....
"An antique dealer for more than 25 years, Wait seamlessly weaves information about antiques fairs, prints, and other types of artifacts into the narrative. .... the premise is intriquing, and the mystery itself credible. There are also hints that Maggie, who appears to be an intriquing character -- she has recently lost her husband, who died suddenly just after she discovered his infidelity -- will be developed much further in subsequent titles. Lovers of antiques will want to give this mystery series a try."
.... Booklist
"Fans of John Dunnings's mysteries about the rare book work (e.g. Booked to Die) may also enjoy this solid ... start to a new series." .... Library Journal
"Homicide and antiques combine smoothly in this well-crafted mystery, the first in a new series from fourth-generation antiques dealer and children's historical novelist Wait. Since several antiques dealers have died lately under suspicious cirumstances, the police are especially vigilant at the Rensselaer County (NY) Spring Antiques Fair. Despite their precautions, recently widowed Maggie Summer, an antique prints dealer who calls her business "Shadows," has just set up her booth when she learns a fellow dealer has died after a scuffle. Full of fascinating information about antiques and antique fairs (each chapter head includes a catalogue-like description of an antique print,) plus helpful maps and careful directions for finding one's place in the crime scene, this solid debut will appeal to cozy fans who appreciate a realistic background. ...Publishers Weekly
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