Home Improvement Guide: Adult Fiction

A Good Foundation ... For MurderPix Miller, Faith Fairchild's next-door neighbor, expects to find more than a hole in the ground when she goes to check on the progress of the summer cottage the Fairchilds are having built on Maine's Sanpere Island. She expects a concrete foundation. What she doesn't expect is a very dead body wrapped in a very valuable antique quilt! The deceased is a local handyman with a suspiciously lucrative sideline in antiques. Sharing her friend Faith's inquisitive nature, Pix resolves to restore Sanpere's shattered peace. But by digging too deeply the determined Ms. Miller just might be arranging another burial -- her own!

DOUBLE TROUBLE Josie Pigeon, proprietor of Island Contracting, is bothered to find she has a double--a gorgeous redheaded carpenter who's being mistaken for her all over the island. And when this mysterious look-alike turns up murdered on Josie's job site, Josie is highly indignant. Can it possibly be--Ms. Pigeon's all-woman construction crew and her boyfriend Sam, fear--that the intended victim was Josie herself? She doesn't think she has any enemies. In waters more troubled than she suspects, Josie goes fishing for the truth--and makes a catch that she wishes she could throw back. . . . "A nice writing style and considerable wit." --Chicago Tribune "Engaging." --People

THE BODY IN THE BEACH HOUSE IS DEAD AS A DOORNAIL. Summer's coming, and Island Contracting's all-woman construction crew is working overtime, glitzing up the old house on the north end of the island. Then the firm's owner, redheaded Josie Pigeon, discovers a murdered body under a drop cloth-- a body that vanishes as mysteriously as it appears. With a complicated job to finish and clients who'd bring out the killer in anyone, Josie doesn't need a murderer on her job site. But she can't erase the horrid suspicion that one of her excellent crew may be moonlighting as a killer. Melissa? Chris? Evelyn? Sexy Betty? It seems impossible. The one bright spot in Josie's life is the new owner of the local liquor store, who's not only attractive but amazingly helpful at amateur detecting. . . .

When the production crew for Courtney Castle's Castles invades contractor Josie Pigeon's job site to shoot a PBS remodeling series, Josie's fifteen minutes of fame seem imminent. Unfortunately, the confusion of taping compounds the chaos of construction, and Josie is soon ready to kill. Which is why, when a bludgeoned body appears on the premises, Josie is a top suspect. That's when she decides to make her own suspect list.  But the more Josie hammers down the facts, the closer to home she hits . . .