Janice Peacock has written a series of books centered around Jax O’Connell.  Jax is a middle aged single woman living in Seattle who makes a living selling beads.  Jax is a pretty fun character. She drives a red beetle that she calls “ladybug”, she has eccentric friends, eats a lot of sweets and lives in a house she inherited that she had remodeled into a duplex.  Jax has a cat named Gumdrop that she adores.

She and her best friends sign up for a week long glass blowing class in a small town just outside of Seattle.  The class is at a friend’s glass blowing studio and a world renowned glass blower from Venice will be teaching.  Unfortunately the class becomes a disaster, the instructor is murdered and their friends glassblowing business may not make it through the ordeal.  In addition the Sheriff of this small town does not seem to know the first thing about investigation or even crime for that matter.

I am not passionate about beads nor glass blowing, but the information in the book was very interesting and leaves little doubt that this is an amazing art form that takes particular skills.  I appreciated Peacock’s putting factual information into the book about the art of glass blowing because it gives the reader a much better picture of what is happening not to mention a greater appreciation of this art form.

The book was a fun, great beach/weekend read.