Fourteen floors above Bellport Harbor, in an Art Deco penthouse filled with forty years of carefully chosen acquisitions, Callie Vance finds a forgery on the east wall. She knows it in the first two hours. The real problem takes considerably longer.
Victor Laine was a serious collector. His estate is a considered one—thirty-four pieces, each with its place, each placement chosen. The centerpiece of the east wall is listed as an R. Kessler landscape, insured for the highest value in the collection. The upper two-thirds are right. The lower third is not. Someone replaced the bottom of a genuine painting with a very good imitation, and they did it recently.
Callie builds a case. It fits perfectly: access dates, art history background, the power of attorney, the motive. She's certain. And then Peggy calls.
The Gilded Grudge is a cozy mystery about what happens when the evidence builds toward the wrong answer—and what it costs to pull the architecture apart when the structure is satisfying and the real answer is harder to see. With Winston working the penthouse perimeter, a gallery full of people with complicated histories, and a detective who has to decide which kind of appraiser she wants to be, this is the most textured case in the series so far.
Genre: Mystery
Victor Laine was a serious collector. His estate is a considered one—thirty-four pieces, each with its place, each placement chosen. The centerpiece of the east wall is listed as an R. Kessler landscape, insured for the highest value in the collection. The upper two-thirds are right. The lower third is not. Someone replaced the bottom of a genuine painting with a very good imitation, and they did it recently.
Callie builds a case. It fits perfectly: access dates, art history background, the power of attorney, the motive. She's certain. And then Peggy calls.
The Gilded Grudge is a cozy mystery about what happens when the evidence builds toward the wrong answer—and what it costs to pull the architecture apart when the structure is satisfying and the real answer is harder to see. With Winston working the penthouse perimeter, a gallery full of people with complicated histories, and a detective who has to decide which kind of appraiser she wants to be, this is the most textured case in the series so far.
Genre: Mystery
Used availability for Wanda Fellows's The Gilded Grudge