A Bed of Scorpions

January 4, 2016
Art and money are the linchpins of Flanders’s enjoyable follow-up to 2015’s A Murder of Magpies. At lunch at a London restaurant with old friend Aidan Merriam, sardonic book editor Samantha “Sam” Clair learns that Frank Compton, Aidan’s partner in the gallery Merriam-Compton, has committed suicide and her boyfriend, Det. Insp. Jake Field, is investigating. Soon questions swirl around the nature of Compton’s death, the business affairs of the gallery, and the upcoming exhibition on the late artist Edward Stevenson, although Sam is preoccupied by her upcoming panel on subsidized efforts in publishing that will include reproductions of Stevenson’s work. Encounters with relatives and associates of Compton and Stevenson provide no further clarity to Sam, and an attempt to run her off the road has both Sam and Jake wondering about Sam’s potential threat to those involved in the case. The finer points of book design, the navigation of Sam and Jake’s relationship, and a tense climax featuring archival shelving units add texture to the narrative. Agent: George Lucas, Inkwell Management.

January 1, 2016
A book editor's esoteric knowledge helps solve a crime. When Samantha "Sam" Clair meets her friend and former lover Aidan Merriam for lunch in London, she finds him in deep despair over the suicide of Frank Compton, his partner in the Merriam-Compton art gallery. Aidan can think of no reason for Frank's sudden suicide. The CID, which is investigating the death, is looking into the gallery's financial status. Sam's boyfriend, Jake Field, who's in charge of the case, has doubts about the suicide, especially since Frank met his death via a Soviet-era handgun, rare in a country where such weapons are extremely hard to come by. Sam is drawn into the investigation while she's doing research for an Arts Council project on subsidies and meets Celia Stein, daughter of the late pop artist Stevenson, who hadn't been seen since 1993 until his skeleton was recently discovered. The Tate is about to do a Stevenson show, and Frank's niece Lucy, who works at Merriam-Compton, is planning her own exhibition of the Stevenson works the gallery owns. Someone who apparently thinks Sam knows something dangerous pushes her off her bike in a hit-and-run that may not have been an accident. Stevenson's death was also ruled a suicide, and the apparently accidental death of a restorer for the gallery is too much of a coincidence for Jake, though he really shouldn't be investigating a case that involves his girlfriend. The more Sam learns about Stevenson and the gallery from her own circle of acquaintances and her mother, a lawyer who represents Merriam, the more she's moved to figure out why she might be a threat to a killer. Sam's second appearance (A Murder of Magpies, 2015, etc.) is a joy to read, filled with diverting characters, a socially clumsy but clever heroine, and a mystery filled with dubious characters.

COPYRIGHT(2016) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

March 15, 2016
Samantha Clair, a London book editor, is having lunch with her ex-boyfriend, art dealer Aidan, when she learns that his partner in a gallery has been murdered. In charge of the investigation? Jake Field, who is Sam's new boyfriend. Making a sticky situation stickier, Aidan wants Sam's help in finding the killer. Flanders takes readers deep into the cutthroat London art world in this fast-moving, witty mystery, which finds the intrepid Sam stirring up all variety of artists and art hangers-on with her questions and prying. From kicking an obnoxious snob at a dinner party to saving herself from being crushed by sliding book stacks, Sam surprises on every page. New adult readers will enjoy the Bridget Jonesstyle wry humor as well as Sam's chaotic romantic life; mainstream-mystery fans will appreciate the smart plotting and clever writing. Fans of Lorna Barrett and Jen McKinlay should also be shown this series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

November 1, 2015

A respected social historian (The Victorian City was a finalist for the 2014 Los Angeles Times Book Prize), Flanders had fun last year with the debut mystery A Murder of Magpies, a LibraryReads pick. Here, book editor Samantha Clair has just discovered that the partner of an old flame has been found dead at the art gallery they own--and the investigating officer is her new flame, Inspector Jake Field.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.