This eighth Sharpe & Donovan mystery was filled with interesting characters and plot twists. It starts when a federal prosecutor invites them to her daughter Adalyn's 21st birthday celebration and then doesn't show up herself. While Adalyn is angry, she isn't really surprised. She knows her mother has been stressed and was on her way to an off-the-grid vacation. But Emma and Colin and especially their boss Yank, who is the prosecutor's friend, are more concerned.

Meanwhile in London, Wendell Sharpe has been invited to meet a woman named Verity Blackwood to answer her questions about art forgery. Verity is a friend of Adalyn's. When she doesn't show up at the meeting, Wendell along with with Henrietta and Oliver check her whereabouts and discover her in her hotel room near death from an opioid overdose.

Checking further they discover that her husband didn't fly home from Maine with her and set Emma and Colin on the case of discovering where he is.

This mystery is centered around Adalyn - her mother, her friends, her new boss. Adalyn is a college student studying archival restoration and preservation and she's got a new job with an art restorer whose current job has to do with restoring art by Fletcher Campbell who is suffering from Alzheimer's and who had a recent fire at his studio in Maine.

I enjoyed this story. I like that the characters from earlier stories are continuing to grow and expand their characters. There is a large cast and the story is told from multiple viewpoints. ( )

Carla Neggers is one of the best at writing complex plots with cryptic clues & assorted events that don’t seem to be but end up being related. A tough prosecutor goes to visit her daughter for her birthday & disappears. A linguist is killed in London by a rifle. A woman overdoses in London after just returning from the US while her husband stays behind. All seem to be unrelated coincidences but all end up being part of a coverup. Can Emma & Colin figure out what’s going on? There isn’t any proof, just instincts that something isn’t right.

Ms. Neggers has the ability to take a series of improbable events & ties them to a single plot. Her characters are tough & tenacious in their jobs but warm & loving in their personal lives. Every Sharpe & Donovan story gives the reader more insight into their wonderful families & their married life together. This is another fast paced thriller from a terrific writer! ( )

Rcvd an ARC at no cost to author..(netgalley) It has been a while since I read a Carla Neggers book and I have to say I wasn't crazy about this book. This apparently is the 8th in this series and I am going to tell you, you probably should read the first books to be able to get intrigued in this one. I never did get excited their were too many characters too many cities just a lot of stuff and it drove me crazy. The premise is the prosecutor Thamara is worried about the people her daughter got involved in and decides she wants to find out more from her friend Yank and his associates newly wed Emma and Connor, she sets up a lunch date to discus the situation but get kidnaps before. Then the chaos ensues.. ( )

art-fraud, art-theft, murder, international-crime-and-mystery, law-enforcement, suspense

Great suspense plus knitting! Art fraud, several murders, FBI and MI5 make for very interesting stuff,but it's the interweaving of plots, important characters, and the escalating tension to find the motives as well as learning more about the interpersonal relationships of the multiple essential characters that drives the reader to abandon other tasks and keep on reading. The publisher's blurb gives some ideas but really can't convey the intensity of this very well written mystery. The romantic aspects are development of already established couples, not the seeking variety. There is no erotica either.
I requested and received a free ebook courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher. Many thanks! ( )