Hired to assess the value of broken and missing antiques following a suspicious burglary at a Virginia manor house, intrepid appraiser and amateur sleuth Sterling Glass finds that her job is more complicated than she'd anticipated.
I haven’t read the first Sterling Glass novel, but it wasn’t necessary. You miss a little of the background between Sterling and her two love interests, but it doesn’t take much to catch on. She gets a lot more than she bargained for when she accepts a job appraising the value of some antiques following a robbery. In fact, she does very little appraising, becoming more caught up in the politics of the foundation that owns the home and the intricacies of the unusual home itself. Sterling also writes a column where she answers questions about antiques, and there’s a question and answer at the start of each column. I felt like I learned quite a bit about antiques just by reading those questions.
The mystery itself is almost unnecessarily complex, and there’s a twist of sort at the end that I didn’t real understand the purpose of. Regardless, I liked the story, and I would definitely read the first book (and any subsequent). But I have to confess... I found the name "Sterling Glass" *way* too kitschy.
