Savannah Blues

Eloise "Weezie" Foley is a picker. She's got magnetic fingers that gravitate toward treasure. Her job is to go around looking at people's junk and trying to find good stuff to resell, and her dream is to own her own antique shop. She's had a few setbacks lately, though. Her husband of ten years dumped her for a younger woman and got most everything - including Weezie's beloved restored Savannah townhouse - in the divorce settlement. Now Weezie is relegated to the townhouse's carriage house and trying to deal with her younger, smarter, more successful replacement, Caroline DeSantos.

When Anna Ruby Mullinax, the last of the Mullinaxes and the owner of the fading antebellum mansion Beaulieu, dies, Weezie thinks it's her big break. If she can just find something big, something wonderful at the estate sale, it might push her savings over the edge into serious capital. But things go horribly wrong when Weezie finds a body at Beaulieu instead - and is accused of murder.

The comparison of Andrews to Crusie is not off base, but Andrews's style is more lighthearted and not quite so cynical. Notable similarities between the two include the socially more gregarious best friend, the goofy but generally sympathetic family members and friends, and the everyone-knows-your-business small town atmosphere.

However, even though the book has a small town feel to it, it's a little different from the usual rinky-dink, one-horse setting found in many romance novels. This is Savannah, and Andrews makes a point of describing the city with such clarity that it almost seems like a character itself. Southern culture is lovingly described and skewered. Andrews also gets in a few elbow pokes at Catholicism and traditional Catholic upbringing and education. None of it is mean-spirited, though. I smiled throughout.

What really made this book unique was Weezie's hobby/career/personal calling to junk picking. In his book On Writing, Stephen King advises authors to include descriptions of their characters' jobs in their novels because readers find vocational detail interesting. This is certainly true in Savannah Blues. Weezie's encyclopedic knowledge of the value of antiques was as fascinating as it was impressive. Her hunt for the perfect antique deal added a great deal of suspense since there was always the chance that someone might beat her to it. And who doesn't like a good deal? I got a vicarious little thrill each time she found treasure.

A small sub-plot in the book involves Weezie's reunion with her old beau, Daniel Stipanek. Weezie dumped him in high school because he was horny and not that interesting. But Danny's all grown up now, and everything he had that was gangly turned to hunky sometime in the previous ten years. Their relationship was sweet, sexy and fun. Readers who enjoy the Hero in Pursuit will find Danny to be just to their taste.

The only downside of this book is that it's a bit over full. Between Weezie's post-divorce musings, her new love life, her Uncle James's coming out of the closet, her mother's drinking problem, her thwarted antique career ambitions, and the murder, there's a lot going on here. Too much. All of these plots and sub-plots were interesting because Andrews's voice is so lively and funny, but some of them get short shrift. And by creating so many conflicts to resolve, the book gets bogged down somewhere in the middle.

Savannah Blues was a fun romp of a book that kept me laughing and entertained. I adored Andrews' breezy, sassy voice and quirky characters. I hear tell she's got another one coming out this summer called Little Bitty Lies. I can't wait to read it. Until then I might have to check out a few of Andrews's mystery books - which she wrote under the name Kathy Hogan Trocheck.

-- Rachel Potter

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