Arsenic and Old Paint

Annie Kincaid. An acquaintance considered my endless store of Fun Facts about Fine Art to be “eccentric” because she was too polite to call it “freakish.” I suspected what bothered her most was the contrast between my expertise in art and forgery and my dearth of common sense in other areas: cooking, balancing my checkbook, staying out of jail...

Annie grew up with an uncle and grandfather, famous artists and art forgers, from whom she learned much. A gifted artist herself, Annie has given up forgery and is now running a faux finishing home decorating business. An interesting and well written cast of characters surround her.

There are several mysteries to solve here: a missing statue, a stolen painting, her uncle's arsenic show more poisoning, and the goings-on at the Fleming Union (aka F-U), the rich-old-mens' club where a body was found in a bathtub, staged to look like a famous painting. Along the way, we wander underground tunnels beneath San Francisco, learning about early prostitution; visit Chinatown and learn about early Chinese laborers, the building of San Francisco, and fireworks; and we learn much about art in general – the chemical makeup of certain paints, painting techniques, how-its-done by certain forgers, and about art trafficking. Although I considered it a fun and fluffy read, there is really a lot packed into these pages.

The series is written by Hailey Lind, the writing team of two sisters, Carolyn J. Lawes, a professor of history, and Julie Goodson-Lawes, a Bay area artist. At the end of the book, they provide: Annie's Guide to Antiquing with Craquelure, a recipe for crackle-finish. I picked up this title solely to fit into the periodic table element challenge. But I enjoyed it enough, that I plan to read the preceding books in the series. show less

Series: 4th in Art Lover's Mysteries

Sensuality: Adult references and situations

Main Character: Former art forger Annie Kincaid, now owns a decorative "faux" painting business

Setting: Modern day, San Francisco California

Annie is on a faux finish job at the exclusive (meaning wealthy men only) Fleming Mansion when she and her workers follow a scream to find a dead man...in a tub...with a sword in his chest. Is it just Annie's imagination or does the scene really look like a recreation of the famous painting "The Death of Marat." This reunited Annie with the local police detective Annette Crawford who knows Annie a little too well from the prior books.

Annie had become business partners with a "former" art thief when the FBI Art Squad show more asked them to run an online art appraisal website in hopes of snagging some stolen art. Through this Annie gets a job offer from an insurance adjuster asking for help in finding a supposedly stolen-but maybe insurance fraud surrounding a Gauguin painting. Naturally the preconceived idea is that she maintains her connections to the art world's criminal element. Then Annie's influential and attractive landlord Frank (a mutual attraction but seemingly oil-and-water relationship) asks for her help in finding a stolen life-size bronze statue of Hermes stolen from a lesser social club. Just to make it interesting, the super hot "former" art thief Michael picks now to re-enter her life.

Annie is a fun and snarky sleuth who learned determination from a pit bull. She ends up running down the three story lines and delivers some laughs too. I will warn readers, her investigations take her into tunnels under San Francisco and even into a "Sex Club" running down clues and leads - there is never anything explicit though. There are laughs even in the most unlikely scenes, so don't let this scare you away. Her dilemma between wealthy Frank and unpredictable Michael comes across as plausible. You end up cheering for Annie, the underdog who is remaking her life and doing her best to be on the lawful path and be respectable.

The surprise breakout stars of the book are a pair of homeless guys who try to help Annie with information on the stolen statue of Hermes and keep popping up in the book. These guys were great and funny. And a close second was the character of Wesley Fleming of the original Fleming Mansion. He gets honorary membership to the club but is somewhat an outcast, probably because he is socially backwards and fascinated with bats. He becomes part of Annie's merry band aiding her to solve these cases.

The multiple cases all have some relationship to one another and the plot is solid. The tense confrontation with the killer is great and the short wrap answers the remaining questions and even a few surprises. The ending seems to point to Annie being given a clear shot with one of her two beaus. It was a long wait for this fourth book, but well worth it. I am already looking forward to the next book in the series.

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Annie Kincaid is back!

Last seen in 2007's Brush with Death, Annie runs the home decorating business she calls True/Faux Studios, as well as an art investigation business partnered with ex?-art-thief Michael X. Johnson.

When she stumbles across a dead body while doing a renovation in the Fleming Mansion, home of an exclusive men's club in San Francisco's Nob Hill, just before her Uncle Anton is hospitalized for arsenic poisoning, she thinks the two events might be related.

At the same time, a man claiming to be an insurance investigator asks her to find a bronze statue that's been stolen from another exclusive San Francisco men's club. Unfortunately, Michael has been incommunicado for days, and she has no choice but to accept the case in show more his absence.

All the old gang is back: jewelry-maker Samantha Jagger, stained-glass artist Pete Ibrahimbegovics, landlord Frank DeBenton, SFPD detective Annette Crawford, and the aforementioned Michael X. Johnson.

In the course of her investigations into the Fleming Union murder(for despite being warned off by the the FU management and the police, Annie is determined to find out who poisoned Anton), she visits several other old Nob Hill mansions, including an S&M club. She discovers that in the early 20th Century there were tunnels under the houses on the Hill, that had been used for various purposes including hiding runaway prostitutes.

She also chooses between the two incredibly magnetic men in her life: Frank and Michael, or does she? Complicating the issue are secrets that she learns about both of them.

Absorbing, fun and full of information about art and history, Arsenic and Old Paint was worth the wait!

Many thanks to Perseverance Press for the Advance Reading Copy. show less

Maybe. I am currently hunting down the earlier titles in the series to evaluate the whole thing. For this book, the beginning was interesting and then all sorts of m I pilots and subplots and complications cropped up. All of this muddied the waters and diluted the forward progress of the book. Simplify. Simplify.

This fourth book in the series might be my favorite. It was past paced, interesting and the protagonist stopped having mad cap adventures where her art-thief partner kept stranding her (as in previous books) and that was a refreshing change of pace. I found it to be a well-balanced book and I'm looking forward to new books in this series.