Book Review: "Death of a Garage Sale Newbie" by Sharon Dunn

Shopping for a Murder

Ginger, Kindra, Suzanne, and Mary Margaret all love garage sales. To them, there's nothing more satisfying in life than finding a really good bargain. Clearance racks and midnight sales are their best friends. When one of the group doesn't show up at her own house for a meeting and turns up dead, the other three turn their bargain hunting skills into crime solving ones. Their detective work introduces them to new friends and very suspicious characters. Combing for clues becomes as easy as searching for cheap prices. The Bargain Hunters Network soon uncovers past secrets that want to stay hidden by those that will kill to stop them.

I love going to garage sales. Those are some of the best places to get really good deals on clothes, old records and best of all, books! I also like shopping for a good bargain. So I immediately connected with the characters in this book with their bargain hunting masterminding. I loved Sharon's Ruby Taylor mysteries so I was really looking forward to this book. I wasn't disappointed at all. I felt the mystery to be played out very well. The BHN members had to use their shopping skills to discover all the clues. Thus the reader went along for the ride with each member as they searched for reasons of Mary Margret's death. The characters are really fun to read. I liked the side stories about Ginger and her husband, and Tammy and her son. I felt that Kindra and Suzanne weren't fleshed out as much as Ginger, so I'm hoping that the next few books will focus more on them. I found Kindra to be an interesting character as she is much younger than the other characters and she is the type of character that one would wrongly judge by appearances. Her speech about Christian stereotypes, I felt, was dead on accurate. I also hope that Arleta will become a BHN member as I enjoyed her character as well. Once again Sharon Dunn has written an excellent book, a great read for old fans and new readers. If you enjoy cozy mysteries or shopping bargains this book is recommended for you.

Death of a Garage Sale Newbie by Sharon Dunn is published by Multnomah (2007)