Art Lover’s Mystery Series

Annie's got bad news for her ex-boyfriend, curator Ernst Pettigrew: the snooty Brock Museum's new 15-million-dollar Caravaggio painting is as fake as a three-dollar bill. And the same night Annie makes her shattering appraisal, the janitor on duty is killed - and Ernst disappears. To top it all off, a well-known art dealer has absconded with multiple Old Master drawings, leaving yet more forgeries in their places. Finding the originals - and pocketing the reward money - will get Annie's new landlord off her back.

Geez, make a splash in the world of art forgery at the age of 17 and people can't stop bringing it up. Lesson learned: genuine art is priceless, and forgery gets you arrested. Now Annie puts her artistic talents to honest use as a faux finisher in San Francisco. But carving out a new reputation can be a creative challenge.... Modernism isn't Annie's thing, but even she is surprised to discover that the "sculpture" in a prestigious gallery's grisly new exhibition is an all-too-real corpse - the artist's.

Since she went straight, Annie Kincaid's been applying her genius for fine art forgery to her own faux finishing business in San Francisco. She hasn't seen the inside of a jail cell since she was 17, although sometimes it takes all of her arts-fine or otherwise-to keep it that way.... Annie knows that art security can be inadequate, but it's crazy to think that an Old Master painting could be hanging unguarded in the local columbarium where she's doing restoration work. Still, when she gets a tip that the chapel's copy of Raphael's exquisite La Fornarina might be the real thing, Annie has to take a look.