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. 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. "Sharon Fiffer's first mystery is a must have...this is a keeper."--Chicago Tribune "[Jane's] addiction to Bakelite and other unusual relics of the American past will endear her to many cozy readers, especially those who are fans of TV's Antiques Roadshow."--Publishers Weekly "Entertaining...an auspicious debut featuring a popular pastime."--Booklist Sharon Fiffer collects buttons, Bakelite, pottery, vintage potholders, keys, locks, and more dead guy's stuff. The author of the Jane Wheel mysteries, including Killer Stuff and The Wrong Stuff , Sharon Fiffer has also co-edited the anthologies Home: American Writers Remember Rooms of Their Own , Body , and Family: American Writers Remember Their Own and written Imagining America . Killer Stuff A Jane Wheel Mystery By Sharon Fiffer Minotaur Books Copyright © 2009 Sharon Fiffer All right reserved. ISBN: 9780312646264 Killer Stuff 1 If 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. Go home and sleep."She thought the approaching blue pickup was slowing down for her, so she gunned the engine and gritted her teeth. The vehicle had the power, but she didn't have the feel for its size; she lost control and nearly went across two lanes as she slid into the traffic. She saw the driver of the pickup snarl and twist his mouth. Through her rolled-down windows, she heard the swearing that was required when a driver made a dumb mistake. She thought she even heard dogs barking and growling.