Gilt By Association (A Den of Antiquity Mystery)

I began with the Magdalena Yoder books and then discovered the Den of Antiquity series. These are marvelous reads! Myers is able to transfer the same zaniness that we love to a very different character without any repetitiveness. This is a very refreshing author who knows just how to keep the reader inthralled until the last moment.

The easy flow of Abby's sunny sarcasm, her smoothing of the satiric-edge trademark of Magdelana Yoder gave me a cozier live in, in Tamar Meyers's DEN OF ANTIQUITY series than I experienced in the Pen Dutch literary gourmet style, though both series are awesome in their humorous capture of human foibles at their least and most sublime. What a writer! The mansions, restaurants, coffee or tea breaks, and munching while clueing all served to keep me reading onward, happy as a clam. I quickly and contentedly sliped into reading along with a relaxed writer/artist who obviously has fun with her craft as she's creating. Considering the flow of this novel in retrospect, I'm intrigued that I recall no feeling of author angst or effort underlying the movement of plot, fleshing of characters, click of dialogue, or lay out of descriptions. Maybe Tamar's unusual background could expalin her obvious confidence in her work and its process: She grew up in the Belgian Congo as a member of a missionary family, passed a childhood in that conflict-rich environment with religious upbringing, returned as a teen to the USA by force of cultural growing pains in the Congo, met her husband-to-be the first day at a US school, accomplished a MA in English, then worked 23 years to launch her two currently successful series. What a perfect background for evolving into a literary pundit. I believe what I enjoy most about this series is the various routinely-natural and effortlessly-entertaining ways Abby worries out her mystery and interviews suspects, often over a meal in a luxury setting or at least one with rich aromatic ambiance of one intensity or another. Hey. I'm a culinary cozy addict. I couldn't ask for more. Here are a couple of my favorite Abby clue-strewing scenes: Bubble bath contemplations with her cat batting bubbles ... Ex husbands' current wife gives Abby a makeover as the current "homemaker" moans over now being the other woman, while Abby soothes the angst of her exhusband's wife with whom he cheated on Abby ... Yeah. And the scene works with both irony and warmth! That's all great setting and satire, but this might take the cake: >> "I really need to smoke while I eat," she (woman Abby was "grilling") said. To be truthful, she didn't sound nasty about it at all. Merely desperate. <br /> <br />>> "I'm sure you'll find enough second-hand smoke to fill your dietary needs," I (Abby) said kindly. <br /> <br />>> She looked genuinely torn between lunch with me and a solitary pack of coffin nails. <br /> <br />>> "Okay, you can smoke, but blow that nasty stuff away from my plate. I mean, you wouldn't like it if I farted on your food, would you?" << <br /> <br />This was quite descriptively good as well: <br /> <br />>>I exhaled loudly, for all the world sounding like a punctured tire.<< <br /> <br />The humor in this author effervesces so easily there's probably quite a bit of it which slides right by, making second and third reading a rewardin

Abigail Temberlake, the owner of an antique shop in Charlotte, North Carolina buys an expensive 18th century French armoire at an auction and this story begins when the armoire is delivered to her shop. The armoire is not what kicks off the story; it is instead the body that she finds inside. The police don't suspect her in the murder but they close down her shop while they investigate and she finds herself momentarily out of business with Christmas just weeks away. Needing desperately to get her shop opened back up, Abigail decides to use her newly found free time to do some investigating of her own. Abigail is not, nor does she consider herself to be a detective, which is a refreshing change within the genera of book. She bumbles and stumbles her way along the trail of clues with all the subtlety of the proverbial bull in a china shop. Along the way her shop is burglarized, her house is broken into while she soaks in the tub and an elderly lady with whom she is about to have tea is poisoned. Finally, while following a false trail she stumbles onto the real killer and once again finds herself in mortal danger. Many of the characters from the first book are inexplicably missing from this story. I can't help but wonder why the author spent so much time introducing her readers to the Charlotte antique community in the first book of this series if she were just going to drop them in the second. Especially noticeable is the absence of Tony who inherited the shop next to Abigail's in the last book. Suddenly there is a new person in that shop named Jane who the other shop owners refer to as CJ, short for Calamity Jane. She comes from out of nowhere to play a major role in this story, second only to Abigail who is of course the heroine. Rob and his partner Bob still have major roles in this story as does Yankee Bob's cuisine, which includes fish broth. Rob keeps asking for steak or hamburger and one cold night he and Abigail sneak out onto the patio and eat a box of doughnuts after a dinner of roasted eel. Wynnell is also still a very visible character and she still blames all misfortune on Yankees. These characters and the very Southern atmosphere more than make up for a plot that gets a little lost at times. Abigail is a little brash for a Southern lady, or gentleman for that matter but she does run to the store and stock up on milk and bread after the radio weather mentions snow. We Southerners do tend to panic when we hear the s word. I absolutely fell in love with Bubba's China Gourmet, a restaurant that specializes in Southern Chinese food. Not food from Southern China, Abigail explains, but Chinese food from the South. Their specialties include stir-fried collard greens, sweet and sour okra and moo goo gai grits. There is also a Catholic Funeral at which a very tall Presbyterian gentleman sits up front having no idea when to sit, stand or kneel. Since most of the people at the service are also not Catholic and have no idea what to do they f

Abigail Timberlake, the intrepid owner of the Den of Antiquity, is pleased to be able to acquire a beautiful four-piece set of furniture at an estate sale. When the set is delivered, she discovers a dead body in the armoire. The set was purchased from an eccentric family, the Barrases, who provide Abby with an interesting list of suspects. As in most families, there are varying degrees of greed and lust and Abby spends most of her time conjecturing as to who could have committed the murder. The author further develops some of the characters from the first book, such as Rob and Bob, and introduces some new ones such as C.J. (Calamity Jane.) The narrative and plot are smoother in this second novel, and the author, although injecting humor does not push it too far. A fun read!

"Gilt by Association" and Tamar Myer's first Abigail Timberlake novel "Larceny and Old Lace" are the funniest mysteries I've read in a long time. The plot is tight, the characters are hysterical, and Abigail Timberlake is a true Southern lady