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(Hardcover - Large Print Edition)
Even in the quiet college town of Fort Collins, Colo., real estate can be murder. Kate Doyle knows that the stress of divorce is compounded by the need to divide the property, sell the home and move elsewhere. In her three years as a realtor, she's ached repeatedly for couples giving up both each other and their houses. In her friend Amanda Schuster's case, though, the trauma is still deeper. Even as her lawyer is uncovering new evidence of her husband's attempts to squirrel away the couple's assets, Mark Schuster is stabbed to death by someone the police think is Amanda. The investigation is headed by Kate's brother-in-law, Det. Bill Levitz, but he's not inclined to abate his suspicions of Amanda or feed Kate any inside info. So Kate naturally sets out to dig up evidence of Amanda's innocence on her own. That means evidence of somebody else's guilt, but since Mark was an incurable philanderer whose latest conquest touched off a minor furor by weeping at his funeral, the field is a fertile one. Sefton deftly handles her obligatory scenes-Maggie's rounds of variously indirect questioning, her unexpected romance, her discovery of a second corpse moments before "everything went black"-but there's nothing here except for those scenes. A bustling, formulaic debut soothing as warm milk despite the casualties. Kate's sure to be back with more of the same.
Maggie Sefton is the author of the Knitting mysteries and a series set in the world of real estate. An avid knitter herself, she lives in Fort Collins, Colorado.
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July 12, 2007: It was very good and entertaining. Am waiting for the next one. Sefton is a very gifted and talented writer.
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August 10, 2005: In Fort Collins, Colorado Shamrock Realty realtor Kate Doyle detests having to sell the home of friends, attorney Mark and Amanda Schuster, who have filed for divorce. Mark wants to get rid of their joint house as soon as possible while Amanda wants the most money they can obtain. Kate works documents with Mark and promises to finish up later that day once she obtains Amanda?s signature................... When Kate returns to see Mark, she is horrified to find him dead with a letter opener stuck through his throat. The police assume a crime of passion occurred thus Amanda is the prime suspect as a rejected wife. Kate thinks otherwise and begins to investigate the activities of a lawyer she thought she knew as a friend. Instead she finds he had several affairs and pulled a land development ploy that angered perspective contractors. Unlike the local cops, Kate has a long list of suspects.................. Although readers will doubt Kate would investigate especially since the corpse shook her to her bone marrow in spite of her best friend as the prime suspect, fans will be pleased with this fun amateur sleuth tale. Kate is shocked when she begins to see a radically different picture of someone she thought she knew merge as she finds Mark was a womanizer and applied questionable business ethics to transactions. The revelations come on top of thinking that Mark and Amanda were the poster couple for marriage before they ask her to sell their house as part of their divorce settlement. Maggie Sefton provides a wonderful who-done-it starring a shell-shocked layperson risking her life to prove her pal is innocent................. Harriet Klausner