The Body in the Gallery
Katherine Hall Page
Morrow, Apr 2008, $23.95
ISBN: 9780060763671
In Aleford, Massachusetts, the Ganley Museum is gaining quite a reputation for quality items and exhibits. Board member Pasty Avery asks her close friend Faith Fairchild, owner of the catering business Have Faith, to visit the museum to see if a valuable Bearden collage she donated has been replaced by a fake. Faith is small enough to crawl under the laser beams to grab the painting, which she takes to Patsy, who becomes hysterical when the back lacks a telltale mark making this a fake.
A few days later at an extravaganza at the museum, Faith finds the dead body of a bald woman in a fish tank that is part of the exhibit. Patsy and Faith believe that the forgery and the homicide are linked with the latter trying to figure out how. Someone identifies the victim, but the police insist no such person exists. By the time the two amateur sleuths learn who the deceased is, someone else is killed. Faith is in the middle of another homicide investigation that brings her to the attention of a dangerous killer.
The latest Faith Fairchild amateur sleuth tale contains the usual delightful mystery with a murderer who is not easy to identify, but when revealed seems plausible that this person committed these atrocities. The story line also focuses on the heroine’s home life and the problems she is having with her teenage son. Thus readers get an insightful family drama that adds depth to the plot, but also questions why she failed to address the issues with her son when they first surfaced. Nevertheless this is a fine body of work that will please fans of the author.
Harriet Klausner
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