In this dynamite series debut, Sharon Fiffer has introduced an engaging and enterprising heroine in Jane Wheel. Recently laid off from her advertising job, separated from her husband Charley, and colliding head-on with a midlife crisis, Jane is trying to make ends meet as an antique "picker" foraging for killer stuff at suburban Chicago's estate sales and auctions, garage sales and flea markets.t Before long she's addicted to the hunt, spending her Friday nights with the classified ads and a street map, outlining her weekend plan of attack. Jane knows that finding the real treasures is all about being in the right place at the right time. But just as she's settling in to her new routine, Jane finds herself in just the wrong place and at quite the wrong time: stumbling over her neighbor Sandy's dead body. Soon she's the prime suspect. After all, everyone on the block seems to have seen her kissing Sandy's husband at a recent dinner party. Leaning on her best friend Tim, a flower shop owner and fellow junk hound, as well as Evanston police detective Bruce Oh, Jane has no choice but to hunt for the truth. Hopefully her knack for uncovering valuables in the least likely of places will extend to discovering clues as well. Like the vintage postcards, Bakelite buttons, and Fulper lamps that she dreams of finding, to Jane the truth just might be priceless. Sharon Fiffer's mystery debut is a fabulously entertaining read and an intriguing puzzle featuring a heroine that's a dynamic mix of Miss Marple, Kinsey Millhone, and Leigh and Leslie Keno. Readers whose idea of heaven is picking through boxes of junk at a dusty flea market are certain to love this entertaining first novel starring Chicagoan Jane Wheel, who's facing a midlife crisis after having been laid off from her advertising job and separated from her husband. As someone with McCoy flower pots and vintage dish towels in her kitchen and a stack of old fiber suitcases in her living room, Jane can think of no better therapy than working as a "picker" for an antiques dealer. Being able to spot an item of value among a mound of junk is a nice analogy for a criminal investigation, and Jane finds her antiquing skills helpful when a neighbor is murdered. Thanks to an untrue rumor that Jane was having an affair with the victim's husband, she finds herself a prime suspect. The world of antiques and collectibles provides the clues as the plot takes the reader from estate sales to auctions (a Fulper lamp drives the unexpected cllimax). An auspicious debut featuring a popular pastime. - Stuart Miller Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Sharon Fiffer collects buttons, Bakelite, pottery, vintage potholders, keys, locks, and other killer stuff. She is co-editor of the anthologies Home: American Writers Remember Rooms of Their Own, Body, and Family: American Writers Remember Their Own ; and the author of Imagining America. Killer Stuff is her first novel. Killer Stuff 1If she hadn't spent an hour sorting through the postcards and theater programs under the workbench, if she hadn't held each slope-shouldered pale blue jar up to the window searching for chips and cracks, if she hadn't pretended to be Nancy Drew, sniffing out an early copy of The Hidden Staircase, complete with book jacket, page-by-weathered-page checking for mildew, Jane might have been the scout, the picker, the shopper, the collector who found the small dull-green vase--maybe it was even Grueby, just maybe it was the real thing--in a box of oh-so-desirable vintage flowerpots, each of which were marked one dollar.Instead, it was some neighbor who dragged the box right out from under Jane's nose and chatted incessantly in the check-out line to anyone who would listen about her African violets and how poor Hettie's sweet little pots would brighten them up. This woman, this violet farmer, paid seven dollars and walked outside, not even aware of what she was carrying. Jane, tapping her foot in line, watched the woman from the large picture window and saw a man approach her. He kept his back to the house, but Jane saw him hold out his hand and the woman nod. He apparently made an acceptable offer, since Jane watched him walk away with the entire box, leavingthe silly woman shaking her head and holding a twenty-dollar bill. Jane had only glimpsed the matte green glaze of the vase nestled in with the flowerpots, and could have talked herself out of believing it was a valuable find if she hadn't seen that picker sniff it out and disappear."I don't even collect ephemera!" she screamed at the four hand-tinted postcards spread out on the driver's seat. Greetings from Carlsbad Caverns. Mount Baldy. Painted Canyon at Sunrise. Badlands Sunset. "I don't even travel!"Jane, driving her neighbor's Suburban, a bus of a car that might accommodate the Hoosier cabinet she had hoped to find that morning, tried to merge into unusually heavy traffic on Interstate 94. "It's Saturday morning.