Pursued by Shadows

August 31, 1992
Characterization has the edge over plot in Arthur Ellis Award winner Sale's fourth Inspector John Sanders/Harriet Jeffries mystery (after Sleep of the Innocent ). The engaging duo find themselves enmeshed in the potentially intriguing world of international art and antiques fraud when Harriet's former lover Guy Beaumont, a renowned painter of the ``corporate oil school,'' returns after a two-year stint in London, where he fled with Harriet's assistant, pregnant Jane Sinclair. Now Jane has left the abusive Guy and taken a supposedly priceless unidentified document--referred to, in a contrived and annoying device, only as ``it'' during the first half of the novel. Shortly after Guy is murdered in Harriet's apartment, paranoid sister Lesley changes places with Jane and heads to New York City with the unnamed item. Jane, meanwhile, hides out in the small town of Skaneateles, N.Y., harbored by a friendly carpenter. Before the scam unfolds, Guy's agent, the agent's two sons, a mercenary academic and various other confederates become involved. Sanders/Jeffries fans should be pleased with the developing relationship between the inspector and the photographer.