Author: Tracy Gardner
Published: June 7th 2022 by Crooked Lane Books
Format: Hardcover, 304 pages
Genre: Amateur Sleuth
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
Series: An Avery Ayers Antique Mystery #2
First Sentence: “Race you home.” Avery Ayers raised one eyebrow at her dad jogging beside her.
Blurb: Thanks to Aunt Midge’s unlikely friendship with Nicholas Pennington, the Duke of Valle Charme, Avery Ayers and her associates at Antiques and Artifacts Appraised head off to their most glamorous assignment yet—cataloguing and appraising the contents of a castle-like mansion on the Hudson River. But regal splendor becomes a backdrop to mayhem when the precious Viktor Petrova timepiece disappears—and housekeeper Suzanne Vick plummets from a parapet to her death.
Avery, her dad William, and colleagues Micah Abbott and Sir Robert Lane soon learn that Suzanne’s predecessor also met with an untimely end. Further, the housekeeper’s suspicious demise coincides with Avery’s discovery that many of the Duke’s most priceless heirlooms have been replaced by fakes.
Detective Art Smith lends his expertise, but the suspect list encompasses the Duke’s entire retinue—including his family. Could the killer be someone intimately familiar with the Pennington estate, such as caretaker couple Ira and Lynn Hoffman, the Penningtons’ chauffeur Roderick, or even one of the heirs to the Pennington fortune?
Then the duke himself is injured in an inexplicable riding accident, and the clock swiftly ticks toward a reckoning with a cold-blooded killer. A criminal mastermind is making a desperate bid for ill-gotten riches…can Avery bring the culprit to justice before her time is up?
My Opinion: Another book that I should have given up on after the second chapter. First off, you need to get used to choppy writing. Second, I don’t know about others, but a main 20-something character that can’t decide between two men until she goes on a date, all the while trying to solve a murder, is wearing thin. Then add a manor house in Hudson Valley, with an extensive collection of family heirlooms dating back centuries, which should take more than a few days to appraise.
The first book in the series, Ruby Red Herring, was only a so-so-read for me. Unfortunately, this book has put a final nail in the proverbial coffin.
Blurb: Thanks to Aunt Midge’s unlikely friendship with Nicholas Pennington, the Duke of Valle Charme, Avery Ayers and her associates at Antiques and Artifacts Appraised head off to their most glamorous assignment yet—cataloguing and appraising the contents of a castle-like mansion on the Hudson River. But regal splendor becomes a backdrop to mayhem when the precious Viktor Petrova timepiece disappears—and housekeeper Suzanne Vick plummets from a parapet to her death.
Avery, her dad William, and colleagues Micah Abbott and Sir Robert Lane soon learn that Suzanne’s predecessor also met with an untimely end. Further, the housekeeper’s suspicious demise coincides with Avery’s discovery that many of the Duke’s most priceless heirlooms have been replaced by fakes.
Detective Art Smith lends his expertise, but the suspect list encompasses the Duke’s entire retinue—including his family. Could the killer be someone intimately familiar with the Pennington estate, such as caretaker couple Ira and Lynn Hoffman, the Penningtons’ chauffeur Roderick, or even one of the heirs to the Pennington fortune?
Then the duke himself is injured in an inexplicable riding accident, and the clock swiftly ticks toward a reckoning with a cold-blooded killer. A criminal mastermind is making a desperate bid for ill-gotten riches…can Avery bring the culprit to justice before her time is up?
My Opinion: Another book that I should have given up on after the second chapter. First off, you need to get used to choppy writing. Second, I don’t know about others, but a main 20-something character that can’t decide between two men until she goes on a date, all the while trying to solve a murder, is wearing thin. Then add a manor house in Hudson Valley, with an extensive collection of family heirlooms dating back centuries, which should take more than a few days to appraise.
The first book in the series, Ruby Red Herring, was only a so-so-read for me. Unfortunately, this book has put a final nail in the proverbial coffin.
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