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Feint of Art
An Annie Kincaid Mystery

by Hailey Lind



      Annie Kincaid was hailed as a child prodigy when she painted a flawless Mona Lisa at age ten. This same talent, inherited from her forger grandfather, just got her into trouble a few years later, and now at thirty-one she is determined to run her faux finishing business and stay out of trouble. But it looks as though trouble has found her, for when she identifies the Brock Museum's "priceless" Caravaggio as a fake and a janitor gets murdered things start to look dodgy. Throw in a new landlord who wants to raise her rent, a mysterious PI and a vanishing ex-boyfriend, and things get even dodgier...

If you like cozies with ditzy, trouble-prone heroines then this ought to please. Annie teeters through this tale, trying to stay on the straight-and-narrow despite her grandfather and dubious contacts galore. She tells the story in her own words, which has the effect of making the book three times as long as it could be and slowing down the pace a whole lot, something this particular book could do without. This is one of those whodunits that rely on charm and zaniness rather than buckets of suspense and a tortuous plot and as such it could stand some editing. San Francisco makes for a good backdrop, and is evidently a place the writers know well and the glimpses into the world of faux finishing and art fraud are interesting.

The Book

Signet Mystery (Penguin Group)
January 2006
Paperback
04251216997
Mystery [Contemporary, San Francisco]
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Excerpt
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The Reviewer

Rachel A Hyde
Reviewed 2006
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© 2006 MyShelf.com