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Summary
Summary
Sterling Glass has built a nice appraisal business in her small Virginia town. She's sought after to examine antiques, research their history, present her clients with approximate values, and help them distinguish good antiques from not so good ones. And when family skeletons are unearthed among the heirlooms, she is the soul of discretion. It's a world she navigates with ease.
But that's before she's called in to examine a diamond brooch found tucked inside an oven mitt over at the Salvation Army thrift store. And before the appraisal of an extremely modest estate turns up a tea urn--hidden inside a basket--worth at least fifty grand.
Things aren't adding up, and Sterling, never one to let go of loose ends, starts asking questions. It's not long before she uncovers an intricate plot involving a slew of antique pieces, the oldest families in Leemont, some sophisticated scammers, crooked antiques dealers, and shifty people at the best New York auction houses. Add to that one elderly man who's just trying to preserve his family's treasured collection of bronze and ivory Art Deco sculptures, and suddenly Sterling finds herself ensnared in a mystery laced with greed, deceit, and danger.
Stealing with Style , the first in the Sterling Glass series, introduces a writer of great wit who has a grand sense of the mystery hidden in our most treasured possessions.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
"What good luck!/ She has found his bones." So begins a litany of horrors from an Iraqi poet who witnessed Saddam's regime's atrocities firsthand. Mikhail, 40, works in Arabic, Chaldean and English, and had to flee Iraq in the years just before the current war; after a stint in Jordan, she now lives in Michigan, where the poems in the first section here were composed over the past few years. They are forceful and direct, with ironies that ring through their blunt admonishments: "Please don't ask me, America./ I don't remember their names/ or their birthplaces./ People are grass-/ they grow everywhere, America." In some, the speaker imagines life in wartime Iraq or writes in one of its many voices, including mythic ones ("I am Inanna," begins one in the Sumerian love goddess' voice, "[a}}nd this is my city"). In others, she channels grief or anger, as in a bitter and beautiful set of "Non-Military Statements." The book's other two sections contain poems from the earlier collections Almost Music (1997) and The Psalms of Absence (1993) respectively; their coverage of the Gulf War makes clear just how much, for Iraqis, war has been a nightmarish way of life, with the U.S. playing a recurrent role. Stark and poignant, Mikhail's poems give voice to an often buried, glossed-over or spun grief. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Jenkins, a well-known antiques appraiser, puts her knowledge to excellent use in this elegant little mystery. Not surprisingly, the heroine is also an appraiser, Sterling Glass, who mostly spends her time examining heirlooms in the vicinity of her Virginia home. She pines for Peter Donaldson, a former minister now working at the local Goodwill, and it's through Peter that she learns that valuable antiques have been found hidden in items at the store. Her investigation into the Goodwill antiques coincides with other appraising business and takes her to New York, where heirlooms collide. A subplot set in Brooklyn and involving an old man who wants to preserve some treasured figurines adds a bit of Semitic spice. The glamorous backdrop of New York auction houses is enticing and the mystery intriguing. But it is really Sterling Glass herself who makes this so special. Hats off to a heroine of a certain age with plenty of smarts and a healthy longing for a gentleman caller. Add this sparkling series debut to other antique mysteries by Lea Wait, Sharon Sloan Fiffer, and, of course, Jonathan Gash. --Ilene Cooper Copyright 2005 Booklist
Kirkus Review
Greed, duplicity and violence disrupt the life of a Virginia antiques appraiser. Sterling Glass is astonished when a valuable tea urn is found by her friend and love interest Peter Donaldson, an ex-minister with an eye for antiques who helps at the thrift shop in historic Leemont. Then Peter discovers a diamond brooch in a batch of items donated by the estate of a woman of modest means found dead in unusual circumstances. On a trip to Manhattan to oversee the urn's safe passage to the high-toned Layton auction house, Sterling finds the brooch on an insurance list of property missing from a Virginia estate. A side trip to Brooklyn previously arranged in an enigmatic call from Sol Hobstein reveals a treasure trove of Art Deco figurines that have survived two wars. Sterling is soon embroiled in Sol's problems. She witnesses an attack on his junk-shop friend by two thugs who want the figurines and goes to work for the insurance company on the list of missing items. The suspects include a phony roofer, a sitter for the elderly, the secretary for Layton's Art deco expert, and the Layton specialist who covers the south. Peter and Leemont police chief Ed Pavich assist Sterling in tying all the clues together. Though this debut mystery is a bit facile, Sterling is a beguiling heroine, and antiques aficionados will love the store of insider information. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Sterling Glasss, a small-town Virginia antiques appraiser, aficionado, and sleuth, discovers a fabulous Paul Storr silver tea urn amid the effects of a recently deceased bank client. Subsequent finds in thrift shops raise red flags. Then, during a New York trip, she meets an old man whose collection of rare, handmade dolls seems under attack by thieves. An insurance claim leads her to the root cause: a clever conspiracy to bilk families of their antiques treasures. This first novel in a debut series offers a fascinating look at the world of antiques-all the way from pickers to New York auction houses. Fans of other antiques mysteries (e.g., Sharon Fiffer's Buried Stuff, Deborah Morgan's Marriage Casket) and collectors especially will enjoy the steady flow of facts. A longtime antiques appraiser and the author of numerous books on antiques (Emyl Jenkins' Appraisal Book), Jenkins lives in Richmond, VA. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
