Crafts and Life

Nell Pratt, president of the Pennsylvania Antiquarian Society, has something to smile about thanks to a generous donation from a major Philadelphia developer who's willing to help update their museum. But renovations have barely begun when a man is struck by a car in front of the building and killed.

The victim is a construction worker who found a curious metal object while excavating an old privy in the museum's basement. Nell thinks the death is somehow connected to the Society, and her suspicions are confirmed when an antiques expert reveals a link between the objects from the cellar and a fellow staff member's family.

Now Nell must unearth a mystery with ties to the past and the present. Because when someone is willing to kill over scrap metal, there's no telling what they'll do next…

Work has started to improve the storage at the Society (thanks to the donation from the Developer Mitchell Wakeham who was helped in the previous book by Nell and the staff at the Society) and whilst sorting the basement the workers uncover an old privy, as it is well over a hundred years since it was used Nell asks if they can clear it out (as people threw what they considered junk and now we consider valuable historical finds down privies!), later that night the man who had gone down to clear the privy out is killed by a car outside the Society building.  Oh and to add to Nell's worries about that Marty is not acting like her usual self.

This was not my favourite in the series – it rambled a bit and seemed to go no where really (and in between the last book and this one a character changes their first name! Ethan Miller becomes Eliot Miller which was …. odd).

3 stars