Shadows at the Spring Show
An Antique Print Mystery
By Lea Wait
Scribner
$24.00
2005
For the past five months, antique print dealer Maggie Summer has been busy promoting an antique show fundraiser for Our World Our Children agency. When everything seems to be progressing well, Maggie learns from the agency's director, Carole Drummond, that Carole has received anonymous hate letters threatening to sabotage the show. So, does she continue with her plans to go ahead with it or call it off?
Considering her options, Maggie decides that the agency would be losing money if she backed down, so she decides to continue with her committment. Shortly after, another woman who wants to be a single parent asks Maggie to meet her for dinner. It seems she is looking for a particular type of child, but the adoption agency would rather present her with an older child from another race. She also believes the agency is treating her different than they do married couples and she wants to do something about it.
On top of all this, Maggie is realizing that she can't plan her life around what some man, a future husband possibly, might expect of her.
Threats against the fundraiser only increase and various situations only add to the tension of the event.
SHADOWS AT THE SPRING SHOW focuses on whether it's appropriate for couples to adopt children of other races. There are those that fear the child's heritage will be lost if he or she isn't placed in a home with parents of the same race. Though the issue was an important one, I had hoped there'd be more of a storyline and more interaction between Maggie and the man she may marry. Not knowing if the fair goers and volunteers would be safe kept me interested.
3 3/4 antique prints out of 5
--Denise Fleischer, gottawritenetwork.com
January 29, 2006
copyright Denise Fleischer & GWN
