Feint of Art: An Annie Kincaid Mystery

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).

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!

I bought this book without thinking, because it is an "art caper," a much neglected sub-genre of mysteries in my view. But I approached it with trepidation since the very first author's thank-you is to an editor at an independent editing firm. Uh-oh. Then when I read that the author is purportedly two people, I braced myself for a real clunker. Not true! The writing is bright and funny, the dialogue snappy, the incidental characters entertaining and the plot if not plausible then at least is well-paced with only a few dead ends. My only gripe is that the although the obligatory handsome and mysterious love interest is a little too domineering for a supposedly independent heroine versed in the ways of the criminal; he's a big presence in the book and the only character that doesn't have at least a whiff of authenticity. I would definitely look for more in this series, which has the potential not only to be a great addition to mysteries based in SF but has also set up the heroine Annie to travel in national and international circles.

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.

What a page-turner: terrific plot, amazingly well-drawn characters and San Francisco settings, and laugh-out-loud funny. Annie Kincaid is a really appealing central character with an unusual history -- teenaged art forger turned faux finisher and detective. There's a great cast around her, too: detectives, friends, rivals, and two potential love interests, all of whom set things up for the next Annie Kincaid Mystery!