Andy Hayes is a private eye temporarily working security at the Columbus Museum of Art when an important painting is swiped. He’s able to recover it, but in the process meets his adult daughter whom he’s never met before. From there he feels compelled to lend his investigative skills to the task of solving her mother’s murder. Readers get to follow along with Hayes as the true details of the murder AND the attempted art heist begin to surface.
In fact, “follow along” doesn’t quite describe the experience of reading this book. Huggins does an excellent job of making you feel like you are working to solve the case right alongside the protagonist. He’s highly skilled at presenting clues and information in subtle ways that feel fair when you reach the end of the mystery. (Red herrings too, damnit!) This made it easy to follow along and I was happy to have purchased the Kindle version so I could easily make notes and highlight potentially important scenarios.
That’s not the only thing that makes this work a really personal reading experience. Ohio friends? Huggins has got you covered. Because it’s set in the heart of Columbus the scenes are bursting with familiar locales and landmarks. It’s such a treat to be able to picture the entire scenario because you’ve been there! (This is one of those great things about reading local literature and you should do it more :)
This is my first foray into what I’d call the more traditional mystery genre. I’m more particular to thrillers with higher stakes and sometimes supernatural elements involved so this felt a little slower paced to me. I’m not holding that against the book in my review, just noting that fans of traditional mystery may be more attuned to its pace.
The only thing that I really felt missing from this experience, for me, was the emotion. Our two most important characters are getting to know each other for the first time, despite being family. The victim of the case Andy is attempting to solve is a fondly-remembered one night stand and while his description of the night is rather romantic there just wasn’t enough overall emotion in this story for me. I enjoyed solving the mystery, the writing style, and the twists, but I had a hard time connecting emotionally with Andy. Now, this is a book I’m catching at the end of an existing series so it’s possible I may have needed to read the other stories to gain that connection.
4/5 stars for this excellent mystery read! Leave a comment below with your favorite read that’s local to you!
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