A Place of Safety : A Trish Maguire Mystery

Rating:
Summary: Is it Art or is it Memorex?
Review: Barrister Trish Maguire's Head Of Chambers asks her to do a favor for old friend Sir Henry Buxford. Buxford wants her to look into the worrying behavior of Toby Fullwell, the curator of a small art gallery. The gallery houses the art collection assembled before the First World War by Jean-Pierre Gregoire. She is reluctant because she needs all the time she can get to help her nine-year-old half-brother adjust to life after his mother's murder. Only Buxford's desire to protect the vulnerable people involved in the Gregory Bequest Collection convinces her to take on the task. She gives herself a crash course in the seemier end of the art market and she soon finds herself sharing his concern.

Intermingled with the present day story are scenes from the First World War, where we see the terror of the war in France through the eyes of a young nurse and art colletor Gregoire, her French lover. When he fails to return for her, she keeps his collection safe till her death, entrusting his paintings to her son, who sets up the gallery with Fulwell as curator.

What Trish doesn't know and has to find out is that Fullwell is being blackmailed. He and a friend successfully faked some Jean Clouet drawings back in the Eighties and made a lot of money. The blackmailer knows it as is using this information, and threats to his family, to persuade Fulwell to help him in a money-laundering-fake paintings scam. Pressures on Fullwell build and violence is never far away. Is he laundering the gallery's money? Are the paintings genuine or fake? What is driving him to a state where he might commit murder? And what about that dead body that is found in the river Thames?

The First World War scenes are painted true to life and the characters are as real as any I've ever read. The relationship between Trish and her psychologically damaged half-brother, is especially well drawn. And there are enough twists and turns in this five star mystery to keep the reader guessing throughout the night.

Reviewed by Vesta Irene

Rating:
Summary: Frustrated !
Review: I'm not able to judge this book fairly as I got only 1/3 of the way through. M/s Cooper assumes that everyone has read the preceeding book and is therefore aware of all the characters and their names. Unlike other authors who write each book as a separate entity, she alludes to people, names and situations which one would have to had read to know what she is on about.I gave up after battling for some time as ones reading life is too short !