As her previous 15 novels attest, Elinor Lipman (Rachel to the Rescue; On Turpentine Lane) reliably plots a smart, madcap foray into love and misadventure. Every Tom, Dick & Harry is a welcome visit to a world of likable characters playing the hands they're dealt, and nefarious ones earning their just rewards.
Emma Lewis is the daughter of the recently retired owners of Finders, Keepers, but she had no plans to return to Harrow, Mass. and take over their estate sale business. Nonetheless, while seeking a job to utilize her liberal arts degrees, she accepts her parents' offer to live rent free as landlord of the family home, and becomes the reluctant CEO of the renamed "Estate of Mind," with their promised assistance. More surprisingly, she enjoys the company of the boarder her parents provide: her retired algebra teacher, Frank, recently widowed after his wife was (many feel fittingly) struck by lightning.
A promising romance with Luke, a former high school classmate and current local police chief, reassures Emma that Harrow isn't so bad. A classic Lipman plot twist heightens the fun when Estate of Mind has the chance to land a lucrative sale at a fashionable property, the Quail's Nest Bed & Breakfast--known locally as the house where "b" also stood for "brothel." Urging Emma to take on the sale, her stepmother pragmatically notes "your father and I are not the morality police," setting up a multitude of titillating episodes.
Lipman convincingly weaves together small-town coincidences, revelations of "B&B" customers, a discovery of a rare sculpture hiding in plain sight, and multiple nuptials to propel this witty and fast-paced feel-good novel to a satisfying conclusion. --Cheryl McKeon, Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza, Albany, N.Y.