When a Mackintosh writing cabinet antiques dealer Lara McClintoch authenticates for a client turns out to be a fake, Lara begins to doubt her professional judgment. After more reflection, Lara begins to suspect that she may have been an innocent pawn in a scam. Unfortunately, the dealer who sold the cabinet has been murdered and won't be answering any questions. Lara's efforts to uncover the scam and restore her reputation lead her to the Orkney Islands. She keeps crossing paths with several suspicious characters who might be trying to keep her from discovering the source of the cabinet.

As is usual for the books in this series, an ancient artifact is involved in the plot, and each chapter begins with the story surrounding the artifact. Most of the time I'm indifferent to the ancient story, but I really enjoyed reading about the adventures of Bjarni the Wanderer in this book. I think the book would have been more satisfying if it had stuck with Bjarni's legend and the artifact mentioned in the legend. This story alone could have made for an interesting plot. The addition of the Mackintosh cabinet and the scam surrounding it, plus other criminal activities, made the plot a lot more complicated than it needed to be. I'm not sure how Lara managed to sort out all of the details pointing toward different crimes by different people, especially since some people were victims of one crime and perpetrators of another. ( )

Despite a few murders a light hearted jaunt through a fictionalized Orkney. ( )