Setting: Racing between London, England, and Barcelona, Spain
Characters:
- Laurel Beacham – Smart, daring, beautiful art recovery specialist
- Jack Hawkes – Dashing, intelligent, agent of The Crown
- Nico – Highly skilled tech wizard on Laurel’s team
- Cassie – Laurel’s assistant/right-hand woman
Plot: Fatal Forgeries begins with Laurel doing what she does best – a covert operation to recover a stolen piece of art. She has visions of reuniting the true owners with the priceless treasure – just as soon as she and Nico get the piece safely away, that is. Laurel makes it safely back to Beacham Foundation headquarters in London, but it seems that Nico has been sidetracked. The question, given the events that have recently unfolded in previous books of this series, quickly becomes: did he leave willingly or not?
What happened with Nico weighs on Laurel’s mind, especially since it seems like the work of art they just recovered might not be the real thing. More questions hang over the heads of Laurel and her team, which makes everything even more complicated. Three separate enemies come to mind – and one of them might just be Laurel’s father. With Nico out of the picture, Laurel is left on her own when Jack is called to service and Cassie is needed elsewhere. She relies on her wits and backbone to elude a kidnapper and a mugger, escaping to a quiet country house until reuniting with Jack. As much as they would love to enjoy the peace and down time, Laurel and Jack are on the run. Whether they end up one step ahead or one step behind remains to be seen.
Pacing: Fast and furious!
Predictability: Low
Wild Card: The Bodies of Art mysteries are consistently some of my favorite books. Each installment of the story is full of rich references to works of art and detailed descriptions of sights, sounds, and scenes from locations around the world. As the story unfolds, I’m always pushing around the pieces of the plot puzzle, trying to keep up with the action playing out on the page. Ritter Ames creates complex and challenging characters who carry out her plots and reel readers in. My only complaint is that once I start reading, I don’t want to stop! It’s hard to set the story aside when it’s time to get to work or sleep. This book (and the series as a whole) is exciting, enticing, and engaging – not to be missed.
About the Book
When art recovery expert Laurel Beacham’s personal and professional worlds collide, she learns no good theft goes unpunished. Incomplete intel and a missing source compel her to make a huge mistake, and she’s left with a divided team. Every retrieved masterpiece has a price—and the cost of forgeries can be deadly. This time Laurel could lose not only her best lead, but also her most trusted ally.
The stakes have never been higher, forcing her and her partner, Jack, to go on the run, crisscrossing Europe to evade the criminals. Except instead of two masterminds working against them, they realize there might be three. With no time to lose, Laurel and her team must pool their resources and work to set aside their differences before they become the next fatalities.
About the Series
About the Author
Ritter Ames is the USA Today Bestselling author of the Organized Mysteries series and the Bodies of Art Mystery series. When she’s not writing or brainstorming new mysteries, Ritter is usually trying to get her favorite yellow lab to stay out of the pond, or keep her grouchy black cat from trying to give the dog away on Freecycle. Ritter would love to live on a boat and write from far flung locations around the globe, but the dog would constantly have to be fished from the water, and her husband and cat would just complain endlessly about the dog’s smell, so staying on land seems to be the only good option to keep her sanity and not get sidetracked from writing.
She is on Facebook at Ritter Ames Books, and you can follow her on Twitter @RitterAmes. Subscribe to Ritter’s Monthly Email Newsletter to get more upcoming news, and special features and contests open only to “email newsletter subscribers.” Ritter uses her Pinterest boards at http://www.pinterest.com/ritterames/ to capture great places and ideas she wants to use in both series. Follow her website blog and boards to learn more about Ritter and her upcoming books.
The Girl with Book Lungs 