The Fine Art of Murder

November 30, 2015
Retired police chief Katherine Sullivan, the narrator of Barnes’s disappointing first novel, travels from Taos, N.Mex., to her hometown of Edina, Minn., to visit her lawyer daughter, Lizzie, who’s getting divorced, and her grandchildren. At the Pierce Art Gallery, Katherine meets staff member Stacey Jordan and wealthy owner Randolph Pierce, picking up on tension between them. Soon Stacey is killed, the police are eyeing Randolph as the prime suspect, and Katherine is perturbed to learn that Lizzie is more than Randolph’s lawyer. Katherine, her old friend Nathan Walker, and the eccentric employees of his security firm team up to solve the murder, looking at those connected to the Pierce estate and mysterious large deposits to Stacey’s bank account. Poor construction, gaps in logic, an emphasis on conversation rather than actual detection, a thin array of suspects, and a failure to deliver adequately on the premise amount to a less than satisfying read.

January 1, 2016

You can take the police chief out of Edina, MN, but you can't take away her nosiness. Although Katherine Sullivan has retired from the force and moved to Arizona to pursue her painting, she returns to Minnesota to help her daughter through her divorce. Bur when a young woman is murdered on the estate of Randolph Pierce, Katherine is drawn into the investigation along with her old friend Nathan Walker, now head of his own security company. Katherine is determined to help her daughter's new boyfriend and show the new police chief that she still has the chops. VERDICT This entertaining debut introduces seasoned, older sleuths and will please cozy readers hungry for more mysteries in the style of Steve Forman's "Boca Knight" series, also featuring a retired police officer.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2016
Former Police Chief Katherine Sullivan returns to suburban Edina, Minnesota, to visit her grandchildren and support her recently divorced daughter. Her sleuthing skills are soon in need when a young art conservator is found murdered at the historic Pierce mansion. There are rumors that Marshall Pierce smuggled stolen art out of Europe during WWII and hid it in the family home, which Pierce's grandson, Randolph, is restoring before turning the estate over to the town as a historic landmark. Katherine's daughter, Lizzie, a lawyer, agrees to represent Randolph when he is held for questioning and asks her mother to help find the real killer. Teased by some of her former colleagues for being in her Matlock years, Katherine is no rocking-chair granny. She keeps up with the music her granddaughter likes and rolls with the punches when her grandson's Asperger's means changing plans to keep him in his comfort zone. Fans of cozy mysteries and of well-seasoned sleuths will hope that this debut is the first of a long series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)