Trace of Deceit

A Trace of Deceit- Karen Odden
William Morrow/HarperCollins Publishers
Release Date: December 17, 2019

Rating:
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Synopsis: A young painter digs beneath the veneer of Victorian London’s art world to learn the truth behind her brother’s murder... 

Edwin is dead. That’s what Inspector Matthew Hallam of Scotland Yard tells Annabel Rowe when she discovers him searching her brother’s flat for clues. While the news is shocking, Annabel can’t say it’s wholly unexpected, given Edwin’s past as a dissolute risk-taker and art forger, although he swore he’d reformed. After years spent blaming his reckless behavior for their parents’ deaths, Annabel is now faced with the question of who murdered him—because Edwin’s death was both violent and deliberate. A valuable French painting he’d been restoring for an auction house is missing from his studio: find the painting, find the murderer. But the owner of the artwork claims it was destroyed in a warehouse fire years ago.

As a painter at the prestigious Slade School of Art and as Edwin’s closest relative, Annabel makes the case that she is crucial to Matthew’s investigation. But in their search for the painting, Matthew and Annabel trace a path of deceit and viciousness that reaches far beyond the elegant rooms of the auction house, into an underworld of politics, corruption, and secrets someone will kill to keep.  

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Annabel Rowe has been slowly working to reconcile with her brother Edwin, but one day she arrives at his flat to discover two detectives there with the news that Edwin is dead.  Murdered, with a valuable painting he had been cleaning now missing.  Annabel needs to understand what happened to her brother to gain some closure on his death (and life) and she convinces Inspector Matthew Hallam that her knowledge of the art world and Edwin will prove valuable to discovering his murderer.  But what they discover is the darkness behind the art world, where secrets fester and can prove worth killing for.

A Trace of Deceit is an engrossing Victorian mystery with a strong central figure in Annabel.  A student at the Slade Art School, she is trying to find her place in the masculine world of painting.  She sees herself as an observer instead of a participant in the world and holds herself apart from fellow students and her older brother, trying to prevent herself from being hurt.  But Annabel is only fooling herself- she's a caring, compassionate woman who feels deeply.  Edwin's death hits her hard, but she finds strength in working with Matthew to discover the killer.  She doesn't shy away from hard truths, although she might not think of them as automatically as a more cynical person would.  And there are plenty of hard truths about Edwin that she has to accept in order to understand his murder.

Where Odden's A Dangerous Duet brought readers into intimate contact with the city of London, A Trace of Deceit focuses on its people.  Like Annabel herself, we focus on how they interact, what they show, and what they hide.  We see through the eyes of a painter the light and the dark that make up the world around Annabel and Matthew.  Odden uses this not only to give the reader brilliant descriptions of the lives around our heroes, but to plant red herrings and clues with equal strength, forcing the reader to continually adjust their view of what seems, at first, to be a simple murder.  

Engrossing from start to finish, A Trace of Deceit will keep readers guessing from start to finish, in a book impossible to put down until the last stone is unturned and the last secret is revealed.  Full of heart and empathy, Odden explores how individuals deal with personal and family tragedies, betrayals, and secrets.  A must read for fans of Sherry Thomas, Anne Perry, and Victorian mystery lovers everywhere.