Trap Door, Sarah Graves' tenth book in the Home Repair is Homicide series, opens with the discovery of a murder which at first seems unrelated to the trials and troubles facing Jacobia Tiptree, who is struggling to renovate her nearly 200-year-old house and deal with her alcoholic son. But when a fugitive from her not-so-squeaky-clean past appears and a disreputable young man goes missing, "Jake" sees a connection and decides to investigate. Soon she is caught precariously between a dangerous hit man and his mark, dodging careening automobiles, vicious dogs, and falling objects, as she tried to nail the killer before he hammers her. And then her ex-husband's ghost appears. Will he help or hinder?

Along with helpful fix-it tips and humorous scenes of repair projects gone wrong, Graves successfully weaves together the tangled threads of several plots in this engrossing cozy-suspense novel. That is, all but one. There's an intriguing little mystery whispering through her story like an apparition; glimpsed briefly but left entirely unsolved at the end. Is it a clever ploy to garner interest in future books? If so, it works.

The author has one annoying habit: she interrupts segments of her characters' speech with blocks of action or description, which makes following their train of thought difficult. I found myself first reading the descriptions, then going back to read the completed sentences of dialogue--an occasional inconvenience in an otherwise exciting mystery.