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43 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A thoroughly enjoyable read, March 23, 2006
This review is from: Feint of Art (Annie Kincaid Mysteries, No. 1) (Paperback)
I understand this is a "first mystery" by two sisters, one an artist and the other a historian, who collaborated to write a mystery (no small task!) The "detective" is a woman living in SF who is a talented artist with a shady past (her grandfather is a skilled art forger and taught her the trade, until she got busted in Paris as a teenager and swore off forgery). She is dogged by a reputation she doesn't deserve and supports herself with a small business doing faux finishes to walls and furniture. The book gets off to a fast start with a death in the first 20 pages. She has been has been invited by the curator of a major art museum to meet him at midnight to visit the vault -- he wants her to evaluate a recent acquisition, a multimillion dollar Caravaggio -- or so they thought when they bought it. As it turns out, there are multiple copies of this painting around -- the only question is who has the real one and what's going on. An art dealer goes missing, along with some valuable artwork. A series of deaths surrounding forged art work threaten our artist-detective, who is trying to locate the stolen art to earn the money to pay the recently doubled rent on her business. She knows and meets a lot of interesting people in her search for the art and gets herself into some amazing scrapes -- but done realistically (she gets caught fairly often, for example, when she's doing something risky). There are two men to provide the possibility of romance -- her new landlord and a man who claims to be a private detective also searching for some missing art. The pace is fast and the people likeable.
I can hardly wait for the next in the series, and I hope the quality continues to be high. I think this one should get an Edgar for best first work.
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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Laughed out loud, October 21, 2006
This review is from: Feint of Art (Annie Kincaid Mysteries, No. 1) (Paperback)
Another reviewer said that this deserves the Edgar for best first mystery. He's right. Feint of Art pulls off the difficult feat of being both laugh out loud funny and a real page turner. It's something like what Janet Evanovich does with the Stephanie Plum mysteries. Hailey Lind does it better. Annie is a thoroughly engaging and believable character. She's trying to make a go of her faux art finishing business, trying to stay straight while her art forger grandfather Georges tries to entice her back into that world, which she swore off after an unfortunate experience in a Paris jail cell when she was a teenager. Then an old boyfriend asks Annie to help him determine whether a painting at the Brock museum is a forgery, and the plot moves quickly when there's a dead body and a missing old boyfriend.
Following Annie as she gets pulled into solving the murders and tracking down forged Old Masterpieces is only half the fun. Even the minor characters are vivid and fully drawn. And having lived in San Francisco, I can say that the Bay Area setting is spot on. Everything works, from the snobs at the Brock museum who turn up their noses at Annie (though they don't have half of her talent) to the drag queens who help Annie get dressed up for a very special occasion, to the real world problems Annie faces, like literally running into her new landlord (who is not what he seems at first, but I won't give away that part of the story).
Every chapter begins with an excerpt from a book by grandfather Georges about his life as an art forger. If you want, these can draw you into all kinds of philosophical speculations about the nature of truth and illusion (why artwork created today less valuable than one created centuries ago and why is a forgery from 137BC in the Brock museum while Georges's forgeries aren't?). Or you can just enjoy the suspense and the laugh out loud moments (like when poor Annie gets stuck in a window, which is much funnier in the novel than in a review). And in a postscript you can learn how to try Annie's faux finishing methods at home.
I'd give this six stars if I could and hope there will be many more Annie Kincaid mysteries. If they're anything like this one, they will be fabulous. It would be great if someone makes it into a movie (I vote for Sandra Bullock, or maybe Renee Zellwenger, as Annie).
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
What a great book! Fun, smart, exciting -- perfect summer reading, June 11, 2006
This review is from: Feint of Art (Annie Kincaid Mysteries, No. 1) (Paperback)
I'm not a mystery lover ordinarily, but a friend lent me this book and I couldn't stop reading! Fast-paced and fun, it kept me laughing and taught me all sorts of interesting things about painting and the art world. So nice to read something intelligent and insightful, but humorous at the same time. Can't wait for the next one!
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