Table of Contents
Plaster and Poison
A delightful small-town Maine sleuth... Solid and entertaining... A pull-no-punches mystery.
Midwest Book Review
Spackled and Spooked
Smooth, clever, and witty. This series is a winner!
Once Upon a Romance
Bound to be another winner for this talented author. Home-renovation buffs will appreciate the wealth of detail.
Examiner.com
I hope the series continues.
Gumshoe Review
Fatal Fixer-Upper
A great whodunit... Fans will enjoy this fine cozy.
Midwest Book Review
Smartly blends investigative drama, sexual tension, and romantic comedy elements, and marks the start of what looks like an outstanding series of Avery Baker cases.
The Nashville City Paper
Polished writing and well-paced story. I was hooked... from page one.
Cozy Library
Theres a new contender in the do-it-yourself home-renovation mystery field... An enjoyable beginning to a series.
Bangor Daily News
A strong debut mystery... Do-it-yourselfers will find much to enjoy.
The Mystery Reader
A cozy whodunit with many elements familiar to fans of Agatha Christie or Murder, She Wrote.
Nashville Scene
A great whodunit. Fans will enjoy this fine cozy.
The Mystery Gazette
A fun and sassy journey that teaches readers about home renovation as they follow the twists and turns of a great mystery.
Examiner.com
Berkley Prime Crime titles by Jennie Bentley
FATAL FIXER-UPPER
SPACKLED AND SPOOKED
PLASTER AND POISON
MORTAR AND MURDER
Acknowledgments
No writer is an island, and this book couldnt have happened without the help of a whole lot of people.
As always, thanks to my wonderful agent, Stephany Evans, and everyone at Fine Print Literary Management, and my equally wonderful editor, Jessica Wade, and everyone at Berkley Prime Crime.
Thanks to my publicists, Tom Robinson with Author and Book Media and Megan Swartz with Berkley, without whom this book would be nowhere.
Thanks to the Penguin design team for another beautiful book: Rita Frangie for art direction and cover design, Jennifer Taylor for cover art, and Laura K. Corless for interior design.
Big hugs to my critique partner, the wonderful Jamie Livingston-Dierks, who saves my posterior over and over again, and to all my other writer friends, too numerous to mention, who have loved and supported me through it all.
Thanks to Angela Burns, my favorite breed of humana librarian!for donating her name to a good cause and for tirelessly pushing my books on her patrons. Thanks also to all the other librarians and booksellers out there, along with all the reviewers, and most especially the readers, who have made this journey possible.
Finally, thanks, hugs, kisses, and undying love to my family, especially my husband and two boys, who know the real me and love me anyway. You guys are the best!
On April Fools Day, Derek started work on his dream house. If I had thought about it, I would have realized that that was a bad sign, but no, I was just too excited that he finally had something to do to worry about anything else.
The house was a decrepit 1783 center-chimney Colonial on Rowanberry Island, about thirty minutes up the coast from Waterfield by boat, and he had fallen in love with it six months earlier: leaking roof, leaning walls, broken windows, and all. Hed wanted to buy it right then and there, but we were in the middle of renovating another house, a project where all our money was tied up, and with winter coming on, the timing just wasnt right. But as soon as the snow melted and the ground thawed, and we sold the house on Becklea Drive and put some cash back into the coffers, Derek was back to harping on about the Colonial on Rowanberry Island. Hes nothing if not persistent.
Derek Ellis is my significant other, as well as my business partner. Wed met the previous June, when Id inherited two cats and a house in tiny Waterfield, Maine, from my great-aunt Inga. Once I decided to spend the summer fixing it up, Derek was the handyman I hired to help me do the work. And in spite of a rocky beginning, I fell for him like a ton of bricks. When I chose to stay in Waterfield instead of going back to New York and my textile design career, going into business together seemed like a no-brainer.
At this point, Derek was owner and I was resident designer of Waterfield Renovation and Restoration. There were no other employees, so Derek was also plumber, electrician, painter, and general contractor, while I did a little of this and a little of that, including some painting, some tiling, some wall treatments, and some other stuff. I do what I can, in other words, and what I dont know how to do, Derek either does himself, or he gives me a crash course on the subject and lets me loose. Its worked for us so far.
The house on Rowanberry Island would be our fourthand most ambitiousrenovation project. After Aunt Ingas Second Empire Victorian in the historic district, wed spent most of the autumn redoing a midcentury ranch in a suburb west of Waterfield (the aforementioned Becklea Drive place), before coming back to the Village to spend the early part of the winter turning my friend Kates carriage house into a romantic retreat for her and her new husband. Theyd gotten married on New Years Eve and had flown to Paris for their honeymoon, and we had just managed to get everything into place for their return.
Since Waterfield was still blanketed under a foot of snow, Derek was forced to spend the first couple months of the new year doing small handyman jobs for other people, while I had agreed to teach a couple of textile design and history classes at local Barnham College. Both of us waited eagerly for enough snow to thaw to allow us to start work on the Rowanberry Island house.
The big day turned out to be April first: The weather was beautiful, most of the snow was gone, and the top couple of inches of ground had thawed. We brought all of Dereks tools down to the harbor and loaded up a little motorboat we had borrowed from Dereks friends Jill and Peter Cortino. That done, we locked Dereks black pickup truck and set out for Rowanberry Island.
The island was only accessible by boat. It was inhabited year-round, but just barely. A handful of houses clung stubbornly to the rocky ground on the northwesternleeside, but every year it seemed another person or two gave up the fight and moved to the mainland. Kids went away to college, never to return, and the elderly died or were moved to assisted-living facilities off island.
For those who held on, there was a little ferry that docked in the tiny harbor a few times a day. Our house was clear across the island from the village, and Derek and I didnt want to be dependent upon the whims of the ferry, so wed arranged with Peter and Jill to use their boat. It was too early in the year for them to use it themselves; the Maine coast in April isnt conducive to pleasure-boating.
April first was a perfect example. The air was crisp, the sky was a lovely, clear blue, and the wind was strong enough to make me wish Id put on my down-filled winter jacket instead of a padded vest and the knit sweater with reindeer and snowflakes I had spent a couple of months slaving over. The life jacket Derek had insisted I wear helped a little, but not enough. I couldnt feel my fingers or my ears, my Mello Yello-colored hair was stinging my face where it blew in the brisk wind, and my lips were turning blue under my lip gloss.
