HAILEY LIND – Brush with Death. Signet, paperback original; July 2007.

   Annie Kincaid’s family background is dominated by a talented grandfather who’s a notoriously successful painter of art forgeries, but Annie, who’s inherited his artistic talent, is trying to live a more conventional life by keeping a career as a “faux finisher” afloat. However, she continues to find that her grandfather’s notoriety and her own somewhat checkered past keep interfering with her good intentions.

   The books keep getting better, and the most recent, and third in the series, has Annie attempting to authenticate a possible original Raphael painting masquerading in a local cemetery as nineteenth century copy, and had me turning the pages with the fervor of the true convert.

   The two sisters co-writing the mysteries as Hailey Lind have a somewhat jaundiced view of the art scene and each chapter is headed by quotes by a famous painter or art historian countered by a cynical restatement credited to Georges LeFleur (Annie’s grandfather) that reflects the authors’ viewpoint.

   A paperback original series that outclasses many of the hardcover series I read.

  Bio-bibliographic Data:

HAILEY LIND. One half of “Hailey Lind” is Julie Goodson-Lawes, a San Francisco Bay Area muralist and portrait painter with her own faux finishing and design business. She graduated from UC Santa Cruz with a major in Latin American studies before earning Masters Degrees in Anthropology and Social Welfare from the State University of New York at Albany.

   The sister who’s the other half of the two-author writing team, Carolyn J. Lawes, received a BA in History from the University of Santa Clara, and an MA and a PhD in History from UC Davis. She is currently an Associate Professor of History at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, where she specializes in American women’s history.

      Feint of Art. Signet, pbo, January 2006. Nominated for an Agatha.  [Best First Novel]

      Shooting Gallery. Signet, pbo, October 2006.

      Brush with Death. Signet, pbo, July 2007.

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[UPDATE] 08-14-08.  An email reply from half of the Hailey Lind combo:

  Hello Steve,

   Thank Walter for me for the lovely review! I especially like the part about out-classing the hardbacks… I’ll keep that one by my computer when I need a boost.

   Unfortunately, Signet has decided not to renew the contract for more titles in the Art Lover’s Mystery series…at least for the time-being. Though the books have garnered a lot of support, been nominated for awards and translated into foreign languages, they simply didn’t sell enough across the board. As I’m sure you know, book publishing is a cutthroat business these days.

   I’m working on some other projects now (including one about historic home renovation, and another featuring a witch with a vintage clothing store!), but I haven’t given up on Annie Kincaid and the gang–they’re much too much fun. Book 4 in the series, Arsenic and Old Paint, is almost finished, and I feel confident that one way or another it will be published, along with numbers 5 and 6 which are already plotted.

   I’ll try to keep you posted as to my progress.

Hailey Lind
Feint of Art; Shooting Gallery; Brush with Death
www.haileylind.com
www.artloversmysteries.blogspot.com
www.truefauxdesigns.com (for art lovers…)