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Crime and Clutter brings back the Friday Afternoon Club and a new adventure.
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This time, it’s neat freak Mary Alice who has a mystery to solve when she receives her fathers belongings which she has delivered to a storage unit, and doesn’t’ have the courage to look at until her helping friends make her…ummmm…assist her.
Inside the storage unit is a 1963 Volkswagen minibus decked out in groovy paint and holding a history of her father’s life.
Once the cleaning of the unit begins, so too, is Mary Alice’s life. She’s harbored feelings for years, feelings that maybe she didn’t even realize she had. Never having really known her father has caused Mary Alice to build a nice little wall around her heart and when a pile of letters is discovered in the van, letters revealing secrets, the wall around Mary Alice’s heart beings to crumble, but not before some fun tactics by other members of the club. They are having a little too much fun helping the great organized one to get organized!
And, of course, as the truth of her father is revealed, his relationships, his passion for the Revolution and his desertion of his family, Mary Alice is left with really only two choices – forgive him and be healthy or hate him and be bitter. With the help of friends, her mother, the stuff in the unit and her faith, Mary wades through what was.
Author Cyndy Salzmann delivers another fun read in Crime and Clutter. It packs a good wallop at the end, and the message of the only real life choice that matters comes through clearly. I loved the flashbacks and almost skipped the contemporary story to follow the other.
(I have a confession. A 1960 something red van named Sunshine, came between me and my man in 1977 before he want to Marine Corps boot camp, so I know the angst a VW can bring, believe me. And, it was amazing how quickly those feelings surfaced while reading this book! Suffice to say my man and I are still together and Sunshine, well, she disappeared into the great auto zone never to be seen again.)
Oh, I almost forgot the best part! Besides the flashbacks I mean….recipes. Each chapter has one or two recipes that go along with the contents of the chapter. It truly is a delightful read.
Reviewed by Linda Mae Baldwin
for The Road to Romance
March 18, 2007
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