Guilty as Sin

October 12, 2015
In British author Cutler’s dramatic seventh Lina Townend mystery (after 2013’s Guilt Edged), the Kent antiques dealer and restorer has loads on her plate. Emotionally, she’s caught between Griff Tripp, her mentor and faux grandfather, who wants her to be financially secure, and her father, Lord Elham, a cleaned-up reprobate. On a trip to Dartmoor, Lina sees robbers vandalizing a church. When she interferes, she gains some dangerous enemies. Back in Kent, Lina befriends a sick old woman who’s not being properly cared for, and that draws an attack as well. Several police officers regularly pop up, one an ex-boyfriend with a secret. After her weekly Pilates class one day, she goes out with two other young women, one of whom is inordinately nosy about Lina’s professional activities. On the way home, she’s attacked more than once, but nothing stops the doughty Lina. Unsurprisingly, a lot of these incidents turn out to be related. Cutler neatly resolves them all at the end.

October 15, 2015
Antiques restorer Lina Townend (Guilt Edged, 2013, etc.) gets her knickers in a knot when she suspects that someone's stealing an old woman's treasures. As Lina's elderly partner, Griff Tripp, has healed nicely from his bypass operation, he's decided to pay it forward by joining a church team that brings Communion to shut-ins. But blind, confused Dodie Boulton worries Griff. He's sure that along with a lot of cheap bric-a-brac, she owned a valuable netsuke mouse that's gone missing. Visiting a market fair, Lina finds the keepsake for sale at a booth run by Devon Cottage Antiques, whose dodgy owner, Arthur Habgood, once accused Lina of trading in stolen goods. Once she's returned Dodie's mouse, Lina is afraid that accusing Habgood would just seem like payback. But while vowing to keep a better eye on Dodie's belongings, she's drawn into a more serious case when she interrupts a burglary at St. Sidwell's, a Preservation Trust church west of Dartmoor. The thwarted thieves take note of her distinctively marked van. Soon, not even her friendship with DS Carwyn Morgan can protect her from retaliation. Lina tries to relax with Pilates, trying even harder to make gal pals out of fellow students Laura and Honey. But as Griff worries about how to provide for Lina after his impending demise, the fallout from her investigation makes him wonder whether she'll actually survive him. Another solid outing for Cutler, who never lets her interest in Lina's developing relationships cloud her eye for the puzzle.

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December 1, 2015

It's a hectic weekend for antiques dealer Lena Townend. While driving across Dartmoor, she interrupts a church burglary, then decides to assist Dodie, an elderly friend of her business partner Griff, who is being ripped off. Lena's soon in hot water, both from the church thieves and whoever is robbing Dodie. The seventh entry (after Guilt Edged) in this enjoyable series doesn't fail to please.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2015
In the latest Lina Townend mystery, the antiques dealer foils a shocking crime. Someone was trying to steal from a medieval church. Lina and her business partner and mentor, Griff, are worried Lina's safety might be at risk. Can Lina's father, the thoroughly disreputable (but oddly likable) professional crook Lord Elham, provide some assistance? The Townend series mixes plot and character quite nicely; here, as always, the relationship between Lina and Griff is central to the story, and, also as always, it's the carefully written characters and dialogue that propel the story. Fans of mysteries set in the world of antiques, such as Gash's Lovejoy novels or Fiffer's Jane Wheel series, should definitely make Lina Townend's acquaintance.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)