Bronzed Betrayals

Another superb adventure for Laurel Beacham and her associates. While she and Jack are attending a trendy party for a Russian oligarch, Laurel is planning to duck out of the party to "steal" back a stolen bronze Rodin, substituting Cassie for her as cover. In Bronzed Betrayals by Ritter Ames, Laurel encounters her arch nemesis Melanie Weems, who goes out of her way to pick a fight with Laurel calling as much attention to the altercation as possible, including a slap across the face. (Bronzed Betrayals will be released on June 26 by Henery Press.)

Still willing to put her plan into action, Laurel leaves the party and breaks into the safe. What she finds surprises her -  the statue is a fake complete with forger's mark. She rushes to put the statute back into the safe, when she is interrupted by someone else looking for it.Watching from a safe spot in the room, Laurel is unsure who the second "thief" might be.

Without the Rodin Laurel slips back into the trendy party that had been her cover. Worried about who among the rival gangs might be interested in the Rodin, Jack escorts Laurel back to her hotel. When he is called away, Laurel proceeds to her room alone only to find the body of Melanie Weems there.  She steps over the body and grabs her bag of electronic essentials and flees down to the lobby. The police are already arriving and  she is stopped by a Met officer and questioned briefly. 

There are so many twist, turns and fake identities in this book, it's hard to know whose side anyone is on, but this is another exciting caper by Ritter Ames. I recently read that in Ritter's mind she would cast a 30 something Cary Grant as Jack. Gosh I wish she could do that!

Another fast-paced adventure. For a review of Fatal Forgeries, the previous book, in the series, click here.

Purchase link

Bodies of Art #4

There should be an official warning label on books by Ritter Ames: Do not read out of order! I love the Bodies of Art books, but they have  highly involved plots with many references back to events that happened in previous books. If you read them out of order you will spend more time in the dark trying to figure about what is going on then actually enjoying the plot. Do yourself a favor and start at the beginning. You will enjoy the series much, much more.

In Fatal Forgeries, Laurel Beacham and her Gorgeous Geek Nico are in the midst of retrieving a stolen Caravaggio - in the middle of the night through cat burglar techniques. When she arrives back at the Beacham Foundation headquarters, she discovers she may have disrupted a project Jack Hawkes was working on for  whichever secret organization he works for.

When Nico goes missing, Laurel is worried about him, but Jack,

ever the suspicious one, believes Nico has gone to the "other side." When video appears showing Nico being lead willingly away with to "bad guys", Laurel is deeply distressed. Had she misjudged Nico or was Jack right that Nico would be easily tempted to switch sides.

Throughout the book we run into some of Laurel's "charming" acquaintances - the shadowy Moran, newspaper reporter Lincoln Ferguson, her boss at the Foundation Max and the ever-unpredictable Rollie. You just know there will be a #5 in this series.

For the first book and others in this series, click here.