Assault and Beret (Hat Shop Mystery, #5)

by Jenn McKinlay

Allons-y to Paris for more hats and homicide from the New York Times bestselling author of Copy Cap Murder!

London milliner Vivian Tremont and her American cousin and partner, Scarlett Parker, tip their caps to their beloved shop on Portobello Road in Notting Hill and set off for Paris, where Viv can’t wait to teach a hat-making class. But she has another reason to travel to the City of Light: to find the man she impulsively eloped with years ago and have their marriage annulled.
 
William Graham is not only handsome and charming, but he also has a glamorous job as an insurance investigator who works with priceless pieces of art, most recently a small Renoir that has been discovered in a junk shop. But when both Will and the masterpiece suddenly disappear, it’s up to the ladies from London to follow the trail of clues. They’ll need to hold on to their chapeaux, however, because someone is a master in the art of deception...

• ISBN10: 0425279596
• ISBN13: 9780425279595
• Publish Date: 3 January 2017
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Berkley Publishing Corporation,U.S.
• Format: Paperback (US Mass Market)
• Pages: 304
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780425279595

Reviews

[MurderByDeath]

Well that was all kinds of awful.   This series stared out so strong with a fun setting (a hat shop in London), and fun characters, but just got progressively weaker with every book.  The duel tracks that the mc's (Scarlett) mind constantly ran on:  "I'm so attracted to Harrison!" and "No! I can't get involved with any man for 1 year!" were petty and immature, especially as their repetition through 5 books just got more and more frequent.  Scarlett also never seemed to really mature in any other way either.  By the end, she was, if anything, more shallow and childish that she was when the series began.   But the plot of this one really just takes the cake for silliness, implausibility, and just... it was crap.  I don't even know what the author's goal was with Will and Alistair but it was a fail.  I didn't want to DNF the book because I was in it for a resolution for Scarlett and Harrison, and I may have gotten it but it was soured by the pure stupid of the plot itself.   This was the final book in the series, to which I can only say thank goodness.  It was a concept with a lot of promise that was treated badly and I'm glad to see the backside of it.