What's with the fine art and forgery mysteries these days? It feels like a lot of the long running series I read seriously has a book in that sub-genre around the same time. When I saw that the latest from James is set in the world of forgery, I was a bit apprehensive - while I do not mind the setting, this series tends to deal with murder and serious crime and a forgery of an old painting does not really fit. I should not have worried - not about that anyway.

Harry and Freya think that they won the jackpot when a random purchase ends up being a long lost piece of an art - so long lost in fact that noone had been sure that the painting made it out from the fires of the French Revolution. Their happily ever after never materializes though - as it turns out there are multiple deaths attached to this painting - and a ruthless and very wealthy man who really wants it. And the chase is off.

Roy Grace comes into the story when one of those deaths triggers an investigation. And here is why I said anyway above - the novel spends a lot more time with the people outside of Roy's team - and a lot less with the team. And that changes the dynamic of the book - part of the enjoyment of this series for me is the police procedural aspect of it and here this part was muted and underplayed.

The novel works as a crime novel but is weak on what makes the series what it is. We are still dealing with Bruno's death (the preparation for the funeral and the funeral itself happen in this novel) and that is part of the complete series that never worked well for me - it looks like an attempt to give depth to Roy and it just seems to drag. And just when you think we are done with it, something else happens to get it back into the story. I am giving the author some time with that story-line though - there had been similar cases earlier that get wrapped up in a later novel and make sense (and then the reason for them becomes clear) so we may still get some kind of a connection here. We shall see with the next novel.

A decent, if not particularly sparkling, novel in the series and a very bad way to get introduced to the series if you never read the previous ones - a lot of the characters are little more than outlines and the background and fill-in comes from the past. Now to wait for the next book in the series... ( )