Statue of Limitations
By Tamar Myers

     It's against her better judgment when feisty Abigail Timberlake Washburn, owner of Charleston's Den of Antiquity Antiques Shop, agrees to let her best friend, Wynnell Crawford, help out on a plum job, that of redoing the garden of a mansion in Charleston's most elite neighborhood. Because Wynnell has no style sense whatsoever, Abby worries that she'll muck up the job and cost her future gigs with the area's rich and famous.

     The trouble is, Wynnell is in over her head financially, after dragging her newly retired husband away from their already-paid-for home in Charlotte, to follow Abby to Charleston.

     Because Wynnell's own antique shop is failing, Abby can't help but sympathize and try to help out.

     But when their client, Marina Webbfingers, is found murdered by a statue the day after a loud argument with Wynnell, all fingers point to Wynnell, and she ends up in jail.

     As an amateur sleuth, Abby has a well-deserved reputation for solving crimes no one else can crack, repeatedly exposing herself to danger. And this time is no exception.

     In her book, Statue of Limitations, Tamar Myers, who has quite a nice list of titles under her name, gives the outsider a sneak peek into the little known quirks of life in the South. Her writing style is coy but cute, and her use of words clever. Unfortunately, clever and cute don't make up for choppy writing where she stops the action with a sudden narrative totally unrelated to the scene. Although I liked her story and thought her characters charming, I found it difficult to follow and frustrating, when, like bumps in a road, I had to keep slowing down to decipher what was happening.