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The Monet Murders

Great fun.  Terry Mott writes beautifully.  Funny, learned, a great main character who is a wonderful male fantasy. He beds every gorgeous woman he meets, leads a glamorous life, and -- unlike most detectives -- hasn't been beaten up even once.

Plot is weakest part.  Stolen Monet. Owned by a couple.  An artist friend (forger) perhaps steals the original and replaces it with a copy.  She hires our detective to find out, but she is promptly found dead--and the forger/friend is dead, too.  The accepted version is that the artist was trying to rape her or maybe rob her and that she shot and killed him. Then, for some inexplicable reason, she killed herself.  As I wrote, the weakest part.

Also weak at times is the motivation for our detective, who renamed himself Bruno just as a lark. At one point, after conceiving a plot to break into a house and switch Monet's, Bruno wakes up and asks himself why he would do this. yes, Bruno. Why?  He decides not to, but he does stay on the case just because.

It's easy to accept because earlier he bails out one of his beauties (a Croatian) who has killed a rapist. Rather than call the police, Bruno arranges to sink the body in the ocean and ditch the rapist's car--all because a scandal will hurt the lovely lady's career.  Well, Bruno, pretty stupid--but great fun to read about.

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