Mystery Books Challenge Book Review Number 4

Stealing With Style
by Emyl Jenkins
Algonquin Books 2005
Website Emyl Jenkins

I grabbed this book off the sale table because the cover looked so gorgeous. And it was an Antiques mystery by a new (to me) author. I LOVE antique mysteries.

This is a Sterling Glass Mystery - and Sterling Glass really is her name. She is an experienced Antiques Appraiser living in Leemont, Virginia, and after a normal maybe even boring life as an appraiser, raising her kids, writing an antiques column for the newspaper and readjusting to life as a widow, she finally stumbles into a mystery.




When a valuable 1810 tea urn and a Georgian style diamond & pearl brooch are found at the local Salvation Army thrift shop, Sterling is called in, to determine where they came from. The trail eventually leads her to a gang of house sitters and roofers who "case the joint" of the rich homeowners and steal the valuables.

Along the way Sterling meets an ex-priest with whom she might be falling in love, a knowledgeable insurance agent, and a sleazy auctionhouse salesman. She also stumbles across some very valuable Art Deco figurines that are being stolen and sold for a quick buck.

To add to the ambience of the story, each chapter opens with a Question and Answer about Antiques, in the manner of Sterling's newspaper column. These Q&A's were very educational.

The Author is a well known Antiques Appraiser in real life and has written several books on the subject. This was her first novel. The excerpt at the back looked good for a second novel, but so far there is no second novel. Which is a great pity because this is one character I would REALLY love to read more of.

Unfortunately, when one does a search for Sterling Glass, one finds a company using that name located in Sterling, Virginia. I suspect Ms Jenkin's publishers did not do an adequate copyright search on the name, before publishing this novel. If the lead character's name has been changed slightly, there may well have been more books in this series. Which is a great pity because I LOVED this story.

Mystery Books Challenge Book Review Number 3

There's an antiques dealer in New England who seems to have a knack for getting mixed up in murders. Well, in this case, actually she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and was framed for a murder she did not commit. So she waited for the police to stop suspecting her and find the real killer. And while she waited, she continued running her antiques appraisal business.
As I have said before, I love art history and the antiquarian business - especially books. But I certainly like reading about the antiques business as well.

So I grabbed Consigned to Death by Jane Cleland from a sales table recently and have just finished reading it. For a first novel it was quite good, but I have do a few nit-picks.

Firstly, I found it annoying every time Josie referred to the "whistleblowing" incident that forced her to leave New York and move to New England. I felt like I had missed a lot of the back-story, and that I had somehow missed reading the book about the whistle blowing incident. There is no such book.

Secondly, I also found it annoying everytime Josie asked her lawyer a question about police and legal procedures. If she had already gone through all this hassle in NYC, then surely she must already be familiar with said procedures? The questions were basically a plot point to show new readers exactly how police procedures work, but Cleland overdid it somewhat, in my opinion.

Thirdly the excerpt at the back for book number two grated on me because it's obvious, there is no continuity between novels. Josie has been through a harrowing murder case (in book one) for which she was the suspect, and was interrogated several times, and yet the very next time (book 2) she is questioned by a cop, she panics? Now I have not read book number 2, but I'm not sure I want to, going by the first 2 chapters excerpted at the back of book 1.

This book is not bad - but its not great either.

So if I had to choose between 2 antiques dealers who like solving mysteries - namely Josie Prescott and Lara McClintoch - I would choose Lara any day of the week, and not just because she lives in Toronto.

But I must also add, that I do LOVE the What's it Worth quiz on Jane Cleland's website.

Fine Books & Collections and Connoiseur Magazines

My very first copy of Fine Books Magazine arrived in the mail today. It is of course the May/June 2007 issue featuring Antique Miniature Books. I have not been so wowed by a magazine since reading Connoisseur Magazine back in the 1980s and early 1990s.

I loved the Connoisseur magazine. Since I couldnt afford to buy them, I always used to borrow them from my local public library. For those of you who may remember that magazine, it was about Art & Antiques, and the editor (at the time I was reading it) was Thomas Hoving.

I met Mr Hoving for the first time in the pages of his excellent book "King of the Confessors". I fell in love with art history courtesy of this book. I have loved maps since I was a child, and now I have come full circle by adding antiquarian books to the list as well.

I do remember seeing a few antique map advertisements in Connoiseur, so there were probably some antiquarian bookseller ads in there as well. Then the library stopped stocking it. I'm still wondering what happened to Connoiseur.