Home Repair is Homicide Mysteries Books In Order

Publication Order of Home Repair Is Homicide Mysteries Books

The Home Repair is Homicide Mysteries series is a cozy mystery by Sarah Graves, an American novelist. The protagonist of this series is Jacobia “Jake” Tiptree, who’s moved to Eastport from New York City so as to get away from The Wall Street in favor of a more simpler existence. Other characters in this series include Sam, Jake’s son, his best friend Ellie White and his ex Victor Tiptree.

Sarah Graves is a very popular writer from Maine, Unites States. Sarah has written several novels within the mystery genre. Her most notable mystery work include Home Repair is Homicide; a series that comprises of 16 novels. Sarah Graves has developed the character of Jack or Jacobia Tiptree as an expert in the home repair services. From her days as a child, Sarah has always been a serious reader and she has remained so all through her life. Sarah developed her habit of writing novels and short stories by getting inspired from things that she used to read about.

Home Repair is Homicide series started with the novel Dead Cat Bounce, which was published back in 1997. The series is still ongoing, at a relatively slow pace of a single novel per year. The first book of Home Repair is Homicide series was released in 1998. The book was titled the Dead Cat Bounce and it was published by Bantam publishing house. The plot of this novel was set on the title’s meaning which symbolizes as a jargon for stock market where there’s a sharp drop of trading price of the stocks after a temporary and small rise. The novel introduces Jacobia Tiptree and Ellie White, her best friend as the main characters. Jacobia is shown as being disgusted to find several broken things everywhere inside her home, which is the old and rambling upper part of the house that she had bought. Below is a description of the first two books in this series.

The Dead Cat Bounce

Home Repair is Homicide series is a mystery featuring Jacobia Tiptree in Eastport. Jacobia Tiptree is a former financial advisor who used to live in New York and had some high-flying clients—even including a few unsavory ‘connected’ folks. One year ago, Jake decided to abandon the rat race and decided to buy a 200-year-old house in Maine and then moved in Sam, her teenage son. Since then, Jake’s life has been one huge instruction book on how to fix her house and it is not been easy. Still, she has managed to make a few friends and she seems to be settling in quite well although she is “from away.”

The Dead Cat Bounce novel is set in the stock market jargon for a temporary and small rise in the trading prices of stock after a very sharp drop. Since Jake had already bought her old fixer-upper part of a house, Jacobia Tiptree is now used to find several things broken. In spite of all these, her latest problem isn’t repaired so easily.

Not much happens inside her tiny Maine town. However, that is about to change. Jacobia’s unknown visitor turns out to be a famous corporate raider, Threnody McIlwaine, a local boy who has turned billionaire. When Jacobia’s best friend, dependable and quiet Ellie White, readily confesses to the killing, journalists and cops swarm into the snowbound Eastport.

Jacobia smells a cover-up and she starts poking into the past history between Ellie and McIlwaine’s family. However, someone does not like nosy neighbours .and Jacobia’s rustic refuge might become her last resting place.

She certainly does not expect to find a corpse in her storeroom—more so is it’s not the body of one of the richest men in the world. Nor would Jake have expected that her best friend Ellie White would be arrested for the killing, but Ellie has already confessed. It’s up to Jacobia to find out who Ellie is actually protecting. Since they already have a confession, the policemen do not seem eager to do more investigation by themselves.

The writer intended her main character in the novel to have the air of smug superiority which will make you to continue reading much longer. Majority of the immediate secondary characters in the book are interesting and they start to flesh out quite well, including Jacobia’s pompous brain’s surgeon ex-husband and her son is a real treat.

Triple Witch

Jacobia Tiptree managed to save her sanity as well as her son on the day that she abandoned The Wall Street to move to the seacoast villages of Eastport, Maine. At her new home, a charmingly dilapidated fixer-upper, Jake looks forward to repairing the old radiators and restore the antique shutter for many years to come. However, Jacobia’s hopes of serenity are dashed when the tiny Eastport erupts in the crime wave.

Kenny Mumford, the hometown bad boy and an old flame of Ellie White, Jacobia’s best friend and fellow sleuth becomes the first victim. When his dead body washes up on a beach at Prince’s Cove, all evidence are pointing to a drowning incident except the bullet hole that’s seen in his forehead.

When bodies begin to litter the Maine scenery, Ellie and Jake learn that an ante on the Kenny’s small-city antics has already been upped. Add a set of unwelcome arrivals—Jacobia’s ex-husband and the unscrupulous New York’s ex-money mogul and you will get a blueprint for more deadly danger as compared to those which one house can actually hold.

The characters in this book are very interesting to follow. Jake is a bit of a doormat in regard to standing up to face her ex-husband. Victor is annoying, sly, arrogant, a bully and he just thinks the sun will shines out to his fortune.

The murder mystery in the book was well done. There are also enough creepy characters in this novel who are waiting within the wings to leave the reader wondering just who the murderer is. Although it’s a bit dated, The Triple Witch novel is well paced and quite easy to read. After reading this novel, you will certainly be on the lookout for the next book in the series.

2 Responses to “Home Repair is Homicide Mysteries”

1. Susan Pudsey: 8 months ago

   August, 2023. I am almost finished with the Home Repair is Homicide series and I see that the last one was copyrighted in 2013. I would like to see more books in this series and wonder if Ms. Graves will be continuing the series soon.

   Reply
2. Suzanne Landig: 2 years ago

   Loved these books. I can imagine living in her house. No matter how off the wall the books I buy into it. I can imagine it. I want to move next door.

   Reply