What Meets the Eye
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From debut author Alex Kenna comes a pulse-pounding tapestry of secrets, retribution, and greed for fans of Jeffrey Archer. Kate Myles was a promising Los Angeles police detective, until an accident and opioid addiction blew up her family and destroyed her career. Struggling to rebuild her life, Kate decides to try her hand at private detective work—but she gets much more than she bargained for when she takes on the case of a celebrated painter found dead in a downtown loft. When Margot Starling’s body was found, the cause of death was assumed to be suicide. Despite her beauty, talent, and fame, she struggled with a host of demons. But as Kate digs deeper, she learns that Margot had a growing list of powerful enemies—among them a shady art dealer who had been selling forged works by Margot. Kate soon uncovers a dirty trail that leads straight into the heart of the city's deadly underworld. Margot died for her art—and if Kate doesn't tread lightly, she could be the next to get brushed out.
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3.5 stars rounded up to 4. A debut crime novel that started out strong – intriguing characters and a plot centered around Margot Starling, a flamboyant up-and-coming new artist with a flair for the dramatic, who appears to have committed suicide. When our lead character Kate Myles, a former police officer turned private eye, is hired by Margot's father to dig deeper, she becomes enmeshed in figuring out a scheme involving art forgeries, shady gallery dealers, blackmail, and thrown in for good measure, the Russian mob and money laundering. While the first half held my interest, and I found Kate a strong protagonist, the story devolved for me in the last half where Kate seemed to make odd choices in pursuing her investigation and a lot of twists and turns left me scratching my head. I'll give this author points for coming up with a strong premise but for this reader the story veered off in directions that didn't make sense and the plot became too muddled by the end for me to recommend it. My thanks to Net Gallery for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.