Deb Baker Goodbye, Dolly

Goodbye, Dolly

Deb Baker

Berkley, Sep 2007, $6.99

ISBN: 9780425217702

After discovering her boyfriend of seven years Steve Kuchen cheated on her, Gretchen Birch dumps him and returns to her hometown to move back in with her mother and also becomes part of mom's doll restoration business. When her mother goes on a publicity tour for her new book, Gretchen attends her first auction where she wins the bidding on a box of Ginny dolls. However, her package and that of someone else gets mixed up and she leaves with a box of kewpie dolls instead.

Reporter Ronnie Bean covered the event, but while working on a big expos story is killed. The weapon is one of Gretchen's tools which has Steve's fingerprints on them because he took it from her. The police arrest Steve, but Gretchen does not believe the rat is a killer. She begins receiving kewpies dolls with threatening messages inside the boxes containing them. When two more people are murdered who know about the kewpie doll mix-up, Gretchen decides she is on the list unless she exposes the identity of the culprit.

Readers will enjoy this engaging exciting amateur sleuth tale filled with quirky characters that provide comic relief when the tension seems ready to explode. Gretchen is a delight as she never makes up her mind but stumbles about trying to uncover a killer before he or she adds her onto the collector's dead list. Deb Baker provides a fun tale starring a likable living doll.

Harriet Klausner