Art Lover’s Mysteries
(Writing as Hailey Lind)
Annie Kincaid, an ex-art forger trying to go straight by working as a muralist and faux finisher in San Francisco, gets drawn back into the world of frauds, forgery, and fakes…and murder.
Arsenic and Old Paint
Book 4
Former art forger Annie Kincaid has been operating a legitimate decorative painting business for quite a while, but memories are long in the art world. Now, with the blessing of the FBI Art Squad, Annie’s using her underworld connections to boost her new art investigation business, where she’s partnered with none other than ex-art thief/ love interest Michael X. Johnson. She moves easily between high and low social circles as she makes the rounds of San Francisco and Bay Area locales, including tunnels beneath the pavements of Nob Hill and Chinatown; the homes and hideouts-even a downtown sex club-of the rich and famous; and the artists’ studios South of Market. At first it’s strictly business: an insurance adjuster asks her to find a stolen (and forged) erotic painting, and her sexy landlord Frank has her track down a missing bronze statue. But when Annie stumbles across a body in an exclusive Nob Hill men’s club, and her Uncle Anton is attacked, Annie’s on the trail of more than just art. This time, she’s looking for justice.
Brush with Death
Book 3
Working nights to restore murals in a building full of cremated remains is strange enough, but chasing a crypt-robbing ghoul through a graveyard is downright creepy. In Brush with Death, San Francisco artist Annie Kincaid finds herself drawn into a decades-old mystery involving some illustrious graveyard residents and Raphael’s most intimate portrait, dubbed La Fornarina, or “the little baker girl”. Could the Raphael “copy” hanging amidst funerary urns actually be the priceless original? Is the masked crypt-robber somehow connected to the Raphael? Or is the painting part of a larger puzzle involving Annie’s unrepentant grandfather, master art forger Georges LeFleur, and an Italian “fakebuster” out to ruin him? Annie’s under pressure to figure things out…before she finds her permanent home amongst the ashes.
Shooting Gallery
Book 2
Modernism isn’t Annie’s thing, but even she is surprised to discover that the “sculpture” in a prestigious gallery’s grisly new exhibition is an all-too-real corpse—the artist’s. Meanwhile, a Chagall painting is stolen from the Brock Museum, and Annie’s old friend Bryan is accused of being in on the fix. To track down the missing Chagall, she’ll need the dubious assistance of a certain sexy art thief. And if Michael—or whatever his real name may be—isn’t distraction enough, Annie’s mother shows up in town, acting strangely. Annie’s got to solve these mysteries, and fast—because art is long, but life can be very, very short.
Feint of Art
Book 1
Annie’s got bad news for her ex-boyfriend, curator Ernst Pettigrew; The snooty Brock Museum’s new fifteen-million-dollar Caravaggio painting is as fake as a three-dollar bill. Then, the same night Annie makes her shattering appraisal, the janitor on duty in the museum is killed—and Ernst disappears. To top it all off, a well-known art dealer has absconded with multiple Old Master drawings, leaving forgeries in their places. Finding the originals and pocketing the reward money will help Annie get her landlord off her back. But a close encounter with a fickle yet charming art thief could draw her into the underworld of fakes and forgers she swore she’d left behind…