Antiques to Die For

In her third Josie Prescott Antiques Mystery, Antiques to Die For, author Jane K. Cleland has topped the success of her first book, Consigned to Death. Josie, a troubled woman in the first book, is now a successful businesswoman who is learning to look beyond her own problems, and care deeply for others.

Josie Prescott is an antiques appraiser in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, whose business is flourishing. While installing pictures for a business, she became friends with Rosalie Chaffee, a Ph.D. candidate. After going to lunch with Rosalie, she's horrified to hear about her friend's death. She's even more horrified when she realizes Rosalie left behind a twelve-year-old sister, Paige, who reminds Josie of herself. Josie lost her parents, her only family members, and she still feels the pain. As an antiques appraiser, Josie is the local person to help Paige find an unknown treasure her sister left behind. When Josie becomes the target of a stalker, who bothered Rosalie before her death, she's even more determined to help the police find Rosalie's killer.

I guessed the killer early in the book, but it didn't lessen my enjoyment of this story. I was impressed with Josie's character, a woman who knew enough to call the police for help. It took a suspension of disbelief to accept the amount of police coverage that Josie received, but she is the police chief's girlfriend.

As always, Cleland includes intriguing stories about antiques, as part of the story of Prescott's Antiques and Auction. There's a side story about Whistler's palette that adds interest to Josie's business. The employees of the auction house are also an enjoyable element in Cleland's books.

Josie has grown in the course of the books, and Jane K. Cleland has grown as an author. Josie's fear was palpable in Antiques to Die For. Cleland made the reader feel that fear with sentences such as, "And always one thought, terrifying in its intensity and impossible to dispel - there was a killer on the loose."

Jane K. Cleland's website is www.janecleland.net, and it includes antiques information as well as a trailer for Antiques to Die For.

Antiques to Die For by Jane K. Cleland. St. Martin's Minotaur, ©2008. ISBN 978-0-312-36827-2 (hardcover), 320p.