“Scraps of Paper is a well-constructed mystery with just the right mix of good guys and bad guys, with a sprinkling of oddballs and misfits thrown in. Kathryn Meyer Griffin does a nice job of allowing the friendship of the book’s two main characters to develop as the story progresses. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes a good who-done-it, set in a picturesque environment with … environment with believable characters. This is the first book in a series the author calls ‘The Spookie Town Mysteries’.” 5 Stars Reviewed by Michael McManus for Readers’ Favorite May 17, 2013 (Second in the series: ALL THINGS SLIP AWAY)
Snippet of NOVELSPOT Review for Scraps of Paper:
“The premise behind this story intrigued me. Old houses have their own history-bad and good. What would you do if, while you were renovating an old house, you found an intriguing mystery, even if it was years old? If you had a chance of solving that mystery, would you? Or would you leave it buried in the past? Would you want someone digging in your past, your tragedies? If someone you loved just disappeared, what would you do?
Kathryn Meyer Griffith’s Scraps of Paper is an engaging story of what happens when you go digging into the past and the possible consequences. It also has an underlying story about dealing with what life hands you and finding the strength to move on. Both Frank and Abby are strong characters they have had to deal with the loss of a loved one and to learn to deal with that loss. You find yourself drawn to them and to all the quirky people who live in the little town of Spookie. In the end you want to know what happened in the old house so many years earlier. I’ll be looking forward to more books about this quaint little town.”
Reviewed By Theresa at NOVELSPOT © March 2006 (9 out of 10 rating)
****
Abigail Sutton’s beloved husband walks out one night, doesn’t return, and two years later is found dead, a victim of an earlier crime. It’s made her sympathetic to the missing and their families.
Starting her new life, Abigail moves to a small town and buys a fixer-upper house left empty when old Edna Summers died. Once it was also home to Edna’s younger sister, Emily, and her two children, Jenny and Christopher, who, people believe, drove away one night, thirty years ago, and just never came back.
But in renovating the house Abigail finds scraps of paper hidden behind baseboards and tucked beneath the porch that hint the three could have been victims of foul play.
Then she finds their graves hidden in the woods behind the house and with the help of the eccentric townspeople and ex-homicide detective, Frank Lester, she discovers the three were murdered. Then she and Frank try to uncover who killed them and why…but in the process awaken the ire of the murderer. *
**This book is the first of a series. The second and third books, All Things Slip Away and Ghosts Beneath Us, where Abigail and Frank’s sleuthing adventures continue, are also for sale on Amazon.
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I really enjoyed this story–it was very original! Abigail decides to move to the town of Spookie to reinvent herself after her husband, who has been missing for two years, was found murdered. The house she buys has its own weird history. The past owner and her two children had vanished without a trace, but Abigail finds scraps of paper written by the missing children that encourage her to find out what happened to them and their mother. A great read. One problem–the punctuation makes this book difficult to read sometimes. There is an overabundance of commas which make things very confusing. This would discourage me from reading other books by this author.
It is ok…not remarkable!
Could not keep my attention. I did not finish it.
Haunting Mystery!
Loved this mystery! It’s a hauntingly, cozy mystery. It starts out with Abigail in the town where she lives but she’s moving. She has just found out her missing husband, Joel, has been found and he’s not alive. So, she’s wanting to start over. She’s been through a lot the last two years not knowing what’s going on with Joel. If he were alive or dead. But she’s found this cozy little town and home that she believes is the place to start over. She gets there, moves in, and she starts finding scraps of paper that’s seems to have been left behind by children who had lived in the house she’s bought and moved into. Many things come into play and mysteries creep up. She dreams dreams that lead her to unveil things no one thought she would find. But eventually it all comes out and mystery is solved. It’s really good. Haunting and scary and sad at times, but I believe if you like mysteries like this, it will be one you really like! I recommend to all!
Happy Reading !!
A great summer read!
This was just one of those books I couldn’t put down.
Once I started the book, I did not want to put it down.
Very good cozy mystery. Interesting characters. You think you are in Mayberry and then……..
The story is too far-fetched. Too many incidents fall very easily in place. Author spends a lot of ink on details incidental to the plot and at times I wondered if she had lost her focus on the tale. Easy to read as the standard of English is average.
i kind of liked the little town where everybody had their own stories, because everyone actually does have their own stories, but i thought the ex cop was a logical villain, not a plot wrench, but maybe in a sequel he will turn out to be a villain. just once i’d like to read one where the book is self contained, maybe the lead character sticks her nose into one too many places and gets killed. she could be a cozy ghost herself…
ok cozy
keep my interest up.
Not bad, but also not wonderful. I might be more sensitive than most, but the cruelty to the children was disturbing, even though it wasn’t described in detail. Having just gone through a move, I was both amused and annoyed at the description of how easy the move seemed to be … the heroine went to town one morning and selected wall paper and paint, then went home and wallpapered the kitchen and painted at least one wall in the living room by the end of the day! Give me a break! First, if you’ve ever lived in a small town, you’d know that the local hardware store does not stock wall paper that you just pick up and go home to hang. And, even a well-experienced DIYer would take most of a day to wall paper a kitchen, unless you’re talking about just putting up a few inches as a backsplash over about two feet of wall space. Then she spent the rest of the week painting the remainder of the house, all the while carefully checking the baseboards for the Scraps of Paper from the title, and even painted the front porch and swing. Okay, maybe it was meant to move the story along, but it seemed to take up a lot of description space if that was its only purpose.
This was a solid effort by the author, but a little too obvious in choosing the villains and the romantic developments. Also, not sure if this only in the Kindle version, but there were unnecessary commas in about half the sentences.
Original plot and good characters. Would read the next book in the series
The mystery unfolds based on scraps of paper found while renovating an old home. The characters are well developed and the story well thought out. An enjoyable read.
Left you guessing and made you keep reading. Very good series of books. Don’t have to read them all, each one has a conclusion
Pleasant reading and believable characters.
No words can convey how badly written this story is.
“Scraps of Paper” by Kathryn Meyer Griffith is the kind of book readers who love mysteries cannot put down. The book is about Abigail Sutton, a graphic artist working at a big city newspaper, who quits her job after her husband of 20 years, Joel, disappears after going out for cigarettes. He is found 2 1/2 years later in his car deep in a forest, the victim of a mugging. Distraught, she decides to leave her apartment and the big city behind and find a small town in which she can be happy again. Her finds the town of Spookie which reminds her of her happy days growing up before she went to the big city. She goes to a realtor to find a house that she can afford. She looks for a fixer-upper and buys an old house, learning that its owner, Edna Summers, an eighty-something recluse, had died there. Abigail immediately befriends the realtor who sold her the house, Martha SIkeston, and Martha introduces her to Frank Lester, a man who can repair whatever needs to be repaired. Abigail learns that Frank had grown up in Spookie and, at 21, was the sheriff’s deputy. Then he moved to Chicago to become a police officer. He returned to Spookie a year ago, after his wife died in an automobile accident. Abigail learns that Agatha’s younger sister Emily Summers, and her young twins Jenny and Christopher, had lived with Agatha during the summer thirty years ago and then had just disappeared. Edna told people that one morning they got in their car and drove away, never to be heard from again. Abigail loves fixing up her new house and meeting the residents of Spookie. While painting, she finds a piece of paper sticking out of a loose baseboard on which there is a note from Jenny saying that she and her brother Chris are scared because of the man who was mean to their mother, made her cry and even hurt her. Abigail shows the note to Martha and Frank. After she finds a second note written by a child saying the children were put to bed without supper, she is determined to find out what had happened to Emily and her children. Readers now also want to find out what happened to them and won’t be able to put the book down until they do. I highly recommend this book.