Perfect for fans of Jane K. Cleland and Ellery Adams, the second
volume in Tracy Gardner's antiques-themed mystery series finds appraiser
Avery Ayers sleuthing a murder in a castle.
Thanks to Aunt Midge's unlikely friendship with Nicholas Pennington, the
Duke of Valle Charme, Avery Ayers and her associates at Antiques and
Artifacts Appraised head off to their most glamorous assignment
yet--cataloguing and appraising the contents of a castle-like mansion on
the Hudson River. But regal splendor becomes a backdrop to mayhem when
the precious Viktor Petrova timepiece disappears--and housekeeper
Suzanne Vick plummets from a parapet to her death.
Avery, her dad William, and colleagues Micah Abbott and Sir Robert Lane
soon learn that Suzanne's predecessor also met with an untimely end.
Further, the housekeeper's suspicious demise coincides with Avery's
discovery that many of the Duke's most priceless heirlooms have been
replaced by fakes.
Detective Art Smith lends his expertise, but the suspect list
encompasses the Duke's entire retinue--including his family. Could the
killer be someone intimately familiar with the Pennington estate, such
as caretaker couple Ira and Lynn Hoffman, the Penningtons' chauffeur
Roderick, or even one of the heirs to the Pennington fortune?
Then the duke himself is injured in an inexplicable riding accident, and
the clock swiftly ticks toward a reckoning with a cold-blooded killer. A
criminal mastermind is making a desperate bid for ill-gotten
riches...can Avery bring the culprit to justice before her time is up?
