Deadly sins, greed and envy, stir up a toxic potion in the second noir mystery in the Boston Publishing House Mystery series. The museum heist of a priceless Renoir, ripped from the pages of Harpoon Books’ forthcoming blockbuster, lands the publisher on the front page of The Boston Globe once again in this life-imitates-art whodunit.
Tantalizing clues are left behind. One, a dead thief is sprawled on the marble floor in the museum’s magnificent rotunda. Dead. And, two, a page literally ripped from an advance copy of Harpoon’s forthcoming bestseller has been tacked to the wall where the stolen painting had hung. Shockingly, the page describes the theft of the very Renoir.
Frances Paige, Harpoon Books’ Publicity Director, desperately searches for the stolen masterpiece, frantic with worry that her former boyfriend—Harpoon’s bestselling mystery author—engineered the heist and the thief’s murder to promote his new book. Powerless to prevent another shocking murder in front of her very eyes, Frances goes rogue to track down the plot’s mastermind, eventually solving the crime and leading Detective Joe Grady of the Boston Police Department to the murderer.
“In “Murder Masterpiece”, Shanahan takes the old detective clichés and stereotypes, turns them on their heads, and ‘kills’ them, so to speak. In fact, her use of the language of murder – even in describing everyday occurrences (if there are any, which I’m not sure there are)– makes this work stand up as truly a ‘literary mystery’. I have to add that the author’s lyrical descriptions of landscape and people also contribute to the mystery’s literary standing.
Such playfulness with clichés and language results in many plot turns and twists that give rise to a thrilling, fun, and page-turning adventure. Add to this a strong female protagonist named Frances whom we can’t help but root for, given her combination of spunk, sexiness, and smarts. In her frenetic world of people who act dishonestly and disloyally, Frances works creatively to balance and take control of her life while staying true to herself and to those she loves: she persistently sleuths, takes care of her fragile mother, and even pens a mystery novel herself. What is also fresh is that Boston’s neighborhoods along with their special alcoholic drinks and dishes emerge as characters in and of themselves, thereby adding to the rather rich array of quirky people who again are not typical at all: they keep surprising us and drive the complex plot along to a rather satisfying conclusion.
As Francis notes on a side trip to Key West, Florida: “a story sat at every table”. And indeed Shanahan’s mystery keeps us glued to our seats for an outrageous ride as we experience the multitude of Francis’ stories from her discerning and entertaining perspective. Bravo!!”
—Review by Fanny Rothschild, Amazon