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

I don't normally read Jeffrey Archer, but I can never resist an Art History Mystery. So when I found False Impression on a sale table on Saturday, I grabbed it for 50 cents. Then I stayed up until 3am Sunday morning because I could not put it down. So this is the first Book in my Mystery Challenge.

The Blurb and the back cover asks questions like

Why was an elegant lady brutally murdered the night before 9/11?
Why was a successful New York banker not surprised to receive a woman's left ear in the morning mail?
Why did a top Manhattan lawyer work only for one client, but never charge a fee?
Why did a young woman with a bright career steal a priceless Van Gogh painting?
Why was an Olympic gymnast paid a million dollars an assigment when she didn't have a bank account?
Why was an honors graduate working as a temporary secretary after inheriting a fortune?
Why was an English Countess ready to kill the banker, the lawyer, and the gymnast even if it meant spending the rest of her life in jail?
Why was a Japanese steel magnate happy to hand over $50 million to a woman he had only met once?
Why was a senior FBI agent trying to work out the connection between these eight apparently innocent individuals?

Let me see if I can answer these questions.

The FBI agent has 3 unsolved murders - all with their throats slit and their art collections recovered by the New York banker to cover their debts. The elegant lady becomes the 4th victim.

The english countess and the elegant lady were related which is why she wants to kill the banker, the lawyer and the gymnast. Actually I dont recall that she even knew the lawyer's name.

The FBI agent thinks the brilliant young women with a promising career who stole the Van Gogh is the murderer, so he puts surveillance on her. He thinks she is in league with the banker. After all she is an Art History professional with a Ph.D. And she and the banker both come from the same East European country.

The honors graduate working as a temporary secretary - well she was the surprise twist. We dont discover her story and how she ties into all this until the very last chapter.

The Japanese magnate - like all art collectors - he's willing to pay $50 million for a "stolen painting", once he is told of the reason for the sale.

The Olympic Gymnast? She also comes from the same East European Country and she uses her gymnastics to escape from a locked room. No bank account means no way to be traced - supposedly.

And by the way, the painting was never stolen. The banker just wants what he claims is his property in order to recover his debt. The english countess says the banker is a swindler and refuses to give up without a fight. The art historian just does a bit of switch & bait to fool the banker and get justice for the countess after the elegant lady was murdered.

And I think I'll leave it at that. You got to read the book to find the answers. But it really is a riveting story. Like I said, I stayed up until 3am reading it.

One last thing - the elegant lady was murdered the day before 9/11. The banker, the lawyer and the art historian are all in New York and were in the North Tower when it was hit. The description of walking down over 90 levels of stairway is very nicely detailed and really makes you feel like you were there. Then the running to escape the dust & ash cloud when the first tower went down is also riveting.

I was sitting at my doctors office on the morning of 9/11 waiting for a diagnostic test. I watched the towers fall on the TV in his waiting room.

Mystery Challenge

Well I have found 2 mystery series that I havent read and with nice strong female characters.

The first character is Anna Pigeon. As I'm sure you probably already know, Anna is a National Park Ranger and part time Detective, and every summer she works in a different National Park. This series is written by Nevada Barr.


The second character is Sister Frivisse. Someone else posted about Margaret Frazer who writes Medieval Mysteries. I love medieval mysteries. I have read most of the Brother Cadfael books.

I'm definitely going to check both these series out.