Sammy Keyes and the Art of Deception

The Edgar-winning seventh-grade sleuth takes on the art world, not to mention affairs of the heart, in the eighth novel in this charming series. Wearing high-top sneakers to a classy art gallery reception, she mortifies the elite guests by asking why an orange splot on a canvas is worth $8,000, and then, when a masked gunman attempts to rob the gallery, Sammy tackles him. Meanwhile, as romance warms up between Sammy and her worst enemy's older brother, Sammy's grandmother's beau, Hudson Graham, becomes smitten by a painter with a dark past. Actress Tara Sands is able to take on both Sammy's precocity and the art community's artificiality with her fast, lively, and totally engaging performance. S.E.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine

April 1, 2003
Wendelin Van Draanen's Sammy Keyes and the Art of Deception marks the eighth title about the spunky detective. To fulfill an assignment, the sleuth attends an art opening. When a bandit crashes the event and yanks paintings from the wall, Sammy attacks. But the real detective work begins when Sammy seeks the truth about a so-called painter.