This is the forth book in the Art Lover's Mystery series by Hailey Lind. In this installment, we meet Annie Kincaid as she is working at an exclusive all men's club on Nob Hill called the Fleming-Union. The club so exclusive, no women are allowed in except by special invitation, and even then they must use the rear service entrance. Even the membership list is a very closely guarded secret. But Annie was specially requested to do a repair job on some old wallpaper in the attic while most of the club members of off on a special retreat. Unfortunately Annie stumbles across a dead body, made up to look like a painting, called the Death of Marat. Strangely enough this same day, Annie's new business venture with former art thief Michael X. Johnson, is asked to look into 2 stolen pieces of art. The first by a New Zealand investigator about a painting that was reported stolen several years ago, and whose forgery has recently turned up on a local auction house. And the second, a bronze sculptor, by her landlord and security expert Frank DeBenton.
Annie begins the investigation into these art thefts and is bumbling along until her honorary Uncle Anton is found nearly dead from Arsenic gas poisoning. This sets Annie off and as she fights to uncover the mystery, things heat up. Annie is attacked once again in this book, and it looks like we just might get the love triangle between her, Michael and Frank resolved. The mystery remained tight and kept me guessing right up to the very end. I never figured out the bad guy until the very end.
This book was very good. I like the growth I see in Annie and how she is forging (no pun intended) her own path, trying to use her art forging connections and knowledge for the right side of the law. Annie's grandfather is very much still a large part of this book, as each chapter begins with a post from his new blog "Craquelure". I gave it 5 stars on Goodreads, because the ending simply rocked and I am salivating waiting for the next book.
Goodreads:
Former art forger Annie Kincaid has been operating a legitimate decorative painting business for quite a while, but memories are long in the art world. Now, with the blessing of the FBI Art Squad, Annie's using her underworld connections to boost her new art investigation business, where she's partnered with none other than ex-art thief/ love interest Michael X. Johnson. At first it's strictly business, but when she stumbles across a body in an exclusive Nob Hill men's club, and an insurance adjuster asks her to find a stolen (and forged) erotic painting, and then her Uncle Anton is attacked, Annie's on the trail of more than just art. This time, she's looking for justice. Annie is a strong woman protagonist. She has reinvented herself from a checkered past as an art forger to a legitimate businesswoman/artist. She moves easily between high and low social circles. as she makes the rounds of San Francisco and Bay Area locales, including tunnels beneath the pavements of Nob Hill and Chinatown; the homes and hideouts-even a downtown sex club-of the rich and famous; and the artists' studios South of Market. The Art Lover's series has an entertaining light touch, especially when either of Annie Kincaid's two romantic interests appear. But Arsenic and Old Paint also deals with serious social issues- some history of slave trading in Chinatown, and its connection with San Francisco powers-that-were; and the male exploitation of the female and immigrant powerless, an issue that continues to this day.
This is the third book in the Art Lover's Mystery Series by Hailey Lind. This book opens with Annie Kincaid working on a restoration project at the Chapel of the Chimes Columbarium, which is adjacent to the Bayview Cemetery. She is working at night, as to not disturb the mourners who come during the day. On this particular night, she meets a young grad student by the name of Cindy Tanaka who is working on her dissertation of the phenomenon of public grieving. While they are talking at the crypt of a little boy who died in 1937, a masked man comes running out of the crypt. Cindy gives chase and manages to tackle the intruder, but he gets away leaving a small box that he had stolen from the crypt behind. Once Cindy finds out that Annie is an art restorer, she asks her a question about a copy of Raphael's La Fornarina that is hanging in the columbarium and if it might actually be genuine. Annie becomes intrigued and promises to take a look.
This small request leads Annie on quite the adventure. Annie once again finds a dead body, is attacked by 2 masked men, rescues Mary from kidnappers, tries to re-establish her friendship with Detective Annette Crawford, kisses Frank DeBenton, is rescued by Michael X. Johnson and generally leaves mayhem in here wake as she stumbles from one clue to another trying to make sense of what is going on.
The amount of history and detail that is expressed to us about the San Francisco area and art in general is very interesting and adds to the story. The twists and turns were very well thought out and kept me guessing almost to the very end. Each chapter of this book begins with a quote by a famous artist and an reply from Annie's infamous art forger grandfather, George LeFleur. They continue to subtly set the tone for each chapter and foreshadow what will be happening within it.
I really enjoyed this mystery and the tension between Annie, Frank and Michael keeps this potential love triangle exciting. I gave this book 4 stars on Goodreads.
Goodreads:
Working nights to restore murals in a building full of cremated remains is strange enough, but chasing a crypt-robbing ghoul through a graveyard is downright creepy.
In Brush with Death, San Francisco artist Annie Kincaid finds herself drawn into a decades-old mystery involving some illustrious graveyard residents and Raphael's most intimate portrait, dubbed La Fornarina, or "the little baker girl".
Could the Raphael "copy" hanging amidst funerary urns actually be the priceless original? Is the masked crypt-robber somehow connected to the Raphael? Or is the painting part of a larger puzzle involving Annie's unrepentant grandfather, master art forger Georges LeFleur, and an Italian "fakebuster" out to ruin him? Annie's under pressure to figure things out...before she finds her permanent home amongst the ashes.
This is the second book in the Art Lover's Mystery by Hailey Lind. This story opens with Annie Kincaid finding a body hanging in a tree a the Brock Museum during a sculptural exhibit. As it turns out, it is the body of the sculptor of the exhibit. While the police are there investigating, a group wandering through another exhibit becomes over wrought from Stendhal Syndrome, and faints. This additional commotion allows for a painting to be removed and stolen right off the wall. One of Annie's good friends, Bryan, was in this group and is being blamed by Agnes Brock as working with the thief. Annie, of course, doesn't want her friend to take the fall for this and decides to work to find the painting and return it to the museum. Additionally, another patron strikes up a conversation with Annie and upon finding out her art connections, asks her to assist in retrieving their sculpture from an artist who is doing some repair work on it, but whom has now refused to return it.
In addition to the secondary characters that we met in the first book, Annie's mother makes an appearance in this book. She has come to town for the funeral of the sculptor who was hanged. Apparently Annie's parents were went to college with the dead sculptor, as well as the sculptor Annie is trying to convince to return the statue he is repairing. The hi jinx and floundering around that happened in the first book is once again present in this book. Annie reminds me greatly of Stephanie Plum, in her bungling and fumbling to solve the cases, that of course, become intertwined.
Each chapter is begun with a quote from Annie's infamous Grandfather, the world famous art forger, as he is doing publicity for his published novel that we were introduced to in the first book. I really enjoyed this variety of ways he makes art relevant to so many different and varied seemingly unrelated fields. We still don't have a solid love interest for Annie, and I like that the field is still wide open. Plus we are seeing more sides to some of the secondary characters and can't wait to find out more. I gave this book 4 stars on Goodreads.
Goodreads:
Modernism isn't Annie's thing, but even she is surprised to discover that the "sculpture" in a prestigious gallery's grisly new exhibition is an all-too-real corpse-the artist's. Meanwhile, a Chagall painting is stolen from the Brock Museum, and Annie's old friend Bryan is accused of being in on the fix.
To track down the missing Chagall, she'll need the dubious assistance of a certain sexy art thief. And if Michael-or whatever his real name may be-isn't distraction enough, Annie's mother shows up in town, acting strangely. Annie's got to solve these mysteries, and fast-because art is long, but life can be very, very short.
In the first book of the Art Lover's Mystery series by Hailey Lind we are introduced to Annie Kincaid. Annie is the granddaughter of the infamous art forger George LeFleur. We find that she spent her young formative years growing up learning how to forge some of the greatest masterpieces of the Renaissance era until she ended up caught and spent her 17th birthday in a Parisian jail. Since that time she has tried to lead a life on the straight and narrow, earning a degree in art restoration and doing her best to overcome her grandfather's reputation. While working at the Brock Museum, her arrest history and background is made known and she is unceremoniously dismissed and basically black balled in the legitimate art world of San Francisco. But Annie finds her niche and opens True/Faux Studios where she specializes in Faux finishes. At the age of 31 she has a fairly successful career and works hard to keep it that way.
The book opens with Annie authenticating a Caravaggio for Ernest Pettigrew, her ex boyfriend and current curator of the Brock Museum. Ernest knows that Annie has an eye for forgeries and asks her opinion on the painting one night, well after closing of the museum. When Ernest doesn't show up at the coffee shop for the meeting he requested with Annie later that night, followed by all the emergency vehicles headed to the Brock, Annie becomes worried and goes to see what is going on. When she finds out that the security guard who had let her in and out of the museum is dead, Annie grows worried about Ernest and begins to look for him.
The secondary characters in this book are quite vivid and engaging. At one point in the book, Annie reflects that her friends are either artists or sociologists. The are great for parties, discussing political issues, or giving a shoulder to cry. She thinks that she doesn't have any truly practical friends, such as doctors, police officers or lawyers that could help with her investigation. Of course this means that when Annie is investigating, she doesn't really have any practical advice and watching her bumble from one incident to the next is quite entertaining.
Each chapter of this book is led with a quote from George LeFleur's pending manuscript, Reflections on a World Class Art Forger. Each piece gives some small foreshadowing of what will be happening in each chapter. The mystery was well written and led us through some quirky twists and turns throughout. I enjoyed this book and gave it 4 stars on Goodreads.
Goodreads:
Annie's got bad news for her ex-boyfriend, curator Ernst Pettigrew; The snooty Brock Museum's new fifteen-million-dollar Caravaggio painting is as fake as a three-dollar bill. Then, the same night Annie makes her shattering appraisal, the janitor on duty in the museum is killed—and Ernst disappears.
To top it all off, a well-known art dealer has absconded with multiple Old Master drawings, leaving forgeries in their places. Finding the originals and pocketing the reward money will help Annie get her landlord off her back. But a close encounter with a fickle yet charming art thief could draw her into the underworld of fakes and forgers she swore she'd left behind...
