Jamie Quinn has had enough of family law and decides it is time for a career change. She has no clue what she is in for.
For her current case, she goes to a retirement home, one that has pet therapy and a hothouse, to mediate a nice and easy divorce settlement between one of the home’s couples. An ambulance pulls up to the front doors just as she arrives. Not thinking too much about its arrival—after all, La Vida Boca was a residence for elderly people—she goes inside to wait for her clients. After a long wait, she finally begins asking where her clients are. It is then she discovers that the ambulance had taken away Mr. Peterson, the husband of the husband/wife duo she was waiting on.
Mr. Peterson is the first to die. When other members of the poker club begin to drop dead, Jamie finds herself in the midst of a mystery, something she never thought she would encounter at a retirement home.
Jamie always has so much going on in her life that she never has a chance to be even slightly bored. Her relationship with Kip has taken a twist though. Because he is gone so much traveling all over the world for his work, she is now having second thoughts about their upcoming marriage. I mean, the Peterson couple had been married for sixty years! If they wanted a divorce after that many years together, what hope was there for her and Kip?
An opportunity to use her lawyer skills at the retirement home where she was to mediate the divorce opens up for her, and she bites. It will only be a little extra money, but it is a chance to do something different. Little does she know that being at La Vida Boca will almost cost her a lot more than she will earn.
When a former client comes to see her while she is working, she takes an unplanned trip into the world of art, fakes, and forgeries. The Chagall painting left to him and his sister by their father has turned out to be fake even though it has a certificate of authenticity. Will Jamie be able to find out where the real painting is?
The Jamie Quinn books just keep getting better and better. This latest mystery has lots of twists, turns, and surprises in it. If you are a fan of great mysteries, this is one that you must read.
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. If you would like your own copy, I have provided an Amazon link below.
Amazon Link: Jeopardy in July: A Jamie Quinn Mystery
open up to imagination, www.studentpulse.com
Favorite Sentences:
Although his bushy eyebrows looked like two white caterpillars taking a nap, his inquisitive eyes missed nothing.
What was my plan now? Adopt a hundred cats and become a crazy cat lady?
My fear was the Kip was Peter Pan and he would never grow up while I was Wendy, unimaginative and unadventurous—in a word, boring.
With the ringer turned off, my phone was like Schrodinger’s hypothetical cat, neither dead nor alive until someone bothered to check it.
New Words Learned:
actuarial – relating to actuaries or their work of compiling and analyzing statistics to calculate insurance risks and premiums.
labradoodle – Also known as a labrapoodle, a labradoodle is a crossbreed dog created by crossing the Labrador Retriever and the Standard, Miniature, or Toy Poodle.
beautyberries – Callicarpa americana (American beautyberry) is an open-habit, native shrub of the Southern United States which is often grown as an ornamental in gardens and yards. American beautyberries produce large clusters of purple berries, which birds and deer eat, thus distributing the seeds.
sabal palm – Sabal palmetto, also known as cabbage-palm, palmetto, cabbage palmetto, blue palmetto, Carolina palmetto, common palmetto, swamp cabbage and sabal palm, is one of 15 species of palmetto palm.
Surinam cherry bushes – In spring and again in fall the Surinam cherry bears small, round fruits with eight prominent ribs. … An easy-care greenhouse plant and because it’s tropical it stays evergreen year round. These are seed grown.
white baneberry – White baneberry, also called doll’s eyes, makes a beautiful addition to the native plant garden, with attractive foliage and long-lasting cluster of white fruits. The fruits are toxic to humans. The Blackfoot used a decoction of the roots as a remedy for colds and coughs. There is a red-fruited form (formerly called Actaea pachypoda forma rubrocarpa) that is generally rare but may be frequent in some locations.
https://gobotany.newenglandwild.org/species/actaea/pachypoda/
About the Author:
Barbara Venkataraman is an attorney and mediator specializing in family law and debt collection.
She is the author of The Fight for Magicallus, a children’s fantasy, and a humorous short story entitled “If You’d Just Listened to Me in the First Place,” and two books of humorous essays: I’m Not Talking about You, Of Course and A Trip to the Hardware Store & Other Calamities in her Quirky Essays for Quirky People series.
She is also the author of the Jamie Quinn mystery series. The books in this series are Death by Didgeridoo, The Case of the Killer Divorce, Peril in the Park, and Engaged in Danger.
Recommended Articles:
A Trip to the Hardware Store & Other Calamities (Quirky Essays for Quirky People) – a Review
Engaged in Danger – a Review
