Jane Cleland which is set in fictitious coastal New Hampshire town called Rocky Point. For those of you who know the region it seems very similar to Portsmouth. For my new readers, my friend Wendy and I are taking a geographical approach to our passion for mystery books and reading novels set in a state in which 'place' is essential to the plot, character, or story. This book fit the bill for me. This is book seven in the cozy series that Cleland writes about her main character Josie Prescott who is an antiques dealer. In this book, Josie acquires a valuable doll collection, and while showing it to one of the town's leading investment gurus Alice Michaels, the woman is shot and killed in front of Josie. The plot thickens as it were as one of Josie's employees Eric is kidnapped with one simple demand, turn over the doll collection. The coastal community of New Hampshire is the perfect backdrop to this interesting mystery. Cleland is descriptive and you can almost smell the sea air as you travel the roads that is Josie's world. In deciding what to do to help find Eric and handle the kidnappers, Josie finds out inadvertently that the dolls themselves have secrets from the Civil War, including the placement of mystery items inside the dolls. It is not often that the author crafts a novel that basically began six books ago and keeps your interest. I am sure that there is a wealth of characters and back story that precede the previous books, but all it did was make me want to go back and read the previous ones. Josie is a gutsy character that I would love to know and can't wait to delve into other books by this author. So if you are like me and always looking for that next series that you didn't know existed, choose these mysteries as your next stop and visit Josie at her antique shop in beautiful coastal New Hampshire. These are available at most public libraries and book stores and print and ebook formats. Happy reading
