Brush With Death: An Art Lover's Mystery
Signet - Signet
Release date: 2007-07-03
Paperback
Author: Hailey Lind
American Mystery & Suspense Fiction, Fiction, Fiction - Mystery/ Detective, Mystery/Suspense, Fiction / Mystery & Detective / General, Mystery & Detective - Women Sleuths, Mystery & Detective - General
average reviews
0 vote
0 vote
React and review
Brush With Death: An Art Lover's Mystery
Date undefinedFor those of us whe have been waiting for Elizabeth Peters next installment of Vicky Bliss, this book and the previous couple by Hailey Lind, are for you! These cozies are very satisfactory reads. Annie Kincaid is the quirky heroine here, and of course Michael X. Johnson is the alter ego of Peters' lovable John Smythe.
Brush With Death: An Art Lover's Mystery
Date undefinedThis is the third in a series written by two sisters (an artist and a historian), who somehow manage to combine efforts to produce this artist-detective series.
Annie Kincaid, the "detective," has a faux finish-art restoration business in San Francisco. She's restoring some art in the Chapel of the Chimes, an elaborate and beautiful mausoleum (it's really a place). They ask her to work at night (would you do that? not me!) to avoid interfering with the bereaved. The book begins with an encounter in an individual tomb in the cemetery, where a child had been buried. Annie runs into a graduate student taking photos, but they're interrupted by someone wearing a ghoul mask, who runs off carrying a box stolen from the tomb.
Annie gradually gets drawn into solving the mystery of what's going on at the Chapel of the Chimes, including what was in the box and who is killing or attempting to kill several people involved in the cemetery in some way. Mixed in with all of this are suspicions about a copy of a Raphael that's hanging in the Chapel of the Chimes. Could it be an original? And if so, who has it now -- because a computer-generated copy is now hanging where the 19th century copy once hung. Annie's knowledge of art forgery (her grandfather is a well-known art forger) gets put to work, and then someone supplies her with a very good motive for tracking down this painting.
She is supported by her zany friends, and love interest is provided by the two men in her life (neither of which is her boyfriend --he's out of town throughout the book).
ALthough I could not put the book down, for some reason the ending wasn't quite as good as the rest of the book -- at least for me. Somehow, the motive just didn't seem sufficient for me.
Nonetheless, if you like female "detectives" with a little romance and some humor and good plotting, I think you'll enjoy meeting Annie Kincaid and her friends.
Brush With Death: An Art Lover's Mystery
Date undefinedEach book in this series gets even more informative and enjoyable. The characters are well defined and likeable. The story lines are fun, humorous and amazingly, you learn about art and art history as you read.
The collaboration of these two sister-authors reflects the compatability they must have in real life. Keep up the great work girls, looking forward to the next installment.
