I love this series. This one is like "Thomas Crowne Affair" meets "How To Steal A Million". Pure fun! ( )

Again, really a 2.75, but I am still a sucker for anything to do with art or art history. Now I have narrowed down my issues with this series. When faced with a myriad of crucial decisions, she makes the wrong one- every single time. Why make someone who is supposed to be smart so stupid? It is annoying. How can we be expected to believe that she is attractive to two sexy men, when all she talks about is how awful she looks? Aside from paint-spattered denim overalls and "frizzy" hair, we get no objective description of her appearance. (I am not letting the first person narrator distract me from my annoyance over this one.) and what is it with not being able to choose between two men who are polar opposites? Annoying. Why are you still reading the series, you might ask. Legitimate question. I guess I am just not annoyed enough to stop! ( )

Annie Kincaid and modern art do not get along-she admits to not liking Pacasso. However, when a Chagall goes missing and her friend Brian is under suspicion, Annie springs into action. Add in a couple who want her help in getting a sculpture of theirs back from getting cleaned, a dead body, and a surprise visit from her mother and Annie's Thanksgiving will be one to remember. ( )

Adored..loved..Juliet Blackwell (as Hailey Lind) does it just the right dash of everything that for me names for a fantastic adventure throughout one of my favorite cities in the US!

Juliet is becoming one of my favorite authors for cozies and I am thrilled to have all of these in the series. If you liked Juliet's newer series do not miss this one! Her protagonist has a flare for the fantastic and has a tendency to be mayhem magnet!

AWESOME series! ( )

I love art galleries. Always have. I find them somehow restful and invigorating at the same time and and there are always surprises to be found in them. So I’m a sucker for books with any kind of art-related theme and when I needed something a bit lighter than usual to read this week I selected Shooting Gallery from the TBR shelves.

Annie Kincaid is the granddaughter of a world famous art forger but she is determined to have a legitimate career as a faux finisher. When she notices a body hanging from a tree at a gallery opening her carefully constructed life starts to unravel and when her friend Bryan is thought guilty of stealing a painting from an art museum she has to get involved. She enlists the help of an art thief whose name she’s not sure of but who sounds sexy (in a Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief kind of way).

Annie’s a good character for an amateur sleuth as she doesn’t take herself too seriously. She has a load of funny one liners and her rag tag group of friends and colleagues round out the slightly madcap nature of the book. I don’t quite know how but art forgery, although clearly a crime, always manages to be a less horrid crime than almost any other when depicted in any kind of fiction and this probably helps maintain the sense of fun in this book (even though the dead bodies do start to pile up). That sense of fun is helped along by the hints of self-deprecation of the genre and these are handled well: amusing but not hurtful to people who love these kind of books.

The plot is unnecessarily complex with one or two too many threads. The resolution reminded me of the scene in What’s Up Doc where all the characters are explaining their stories to the judge in the courtroom: it had the same kind of screwball comedic feel. I rather enjoyed that element but I suspect it’s not to everyone’s taste. For those who don’t like the humorous element there are loads of informative snippets about the art world and the story gallops along at quite a rapid pace so it’s not one that would bore too many.

I know cosy mysteries aren’t for everyone but if you do dabble in the genre you could do much (much) worse than this amusing contribution. I’ll be looking for the others in this series. ( )