Play Book Tag discussion

Avery Ayers and her family's esteemed appraisal firm has been hired by a museum to authenticate a rare large ruby that is believed to be the missing ruby eye of an antique chinese dragon medallion in the museum's possession. It's the first significant project herself will be working on since taking over the firm after her parents' deaths a year earlier in a car accident. Also, her parents had authenticated the dragon medallion a year earlier, including the single ruby eye still in its setting. yet no sooner does Avery and her partner Micah start work on the ruby than mysterious notes and calls are delivered to Avery, followed by break-ins and escalating violence. Even the circumstances surrounding her parents deaths and their authentication of the ruby eye in the dragon medallion come into question. I learned a surprising amount about how you test and measure and determine a real Burmese ruby from a spinel (essentially a really good fake - there's a whole sience to them). It never occured to me just how much math and science goes into it which is one reason why a fake does not fool a real expert.

I have a fondness for mysteries set in the world of art, antiques, vintage collectibles and the faking of same, probably stemming from my teen years spent accompanying my mother to estate sales and auctions. There were a lot of those in rural upstate NY in the mid-1970s as newly adopted state laws regulating the sale of milk drove many an aging farmer into retirement and 'selling the farm', literally. However, while this was enjoyable, and I probably will read the next in the series when it's published, something just didn't sit right with me throughout. It might have been the fact that the author never missed a chance to describe what was being worn down to the designer logo. Something about Avery herself didn't sit well with me; maybe she was too young in years for the role she was cast in, maybe her constant need to moderate her emotions and talk to her shrink irritated me. Whatever, I rounded it up to 3 stars because there is one super marvelous heroic greyhound named Halston (oh yeah, author is definitely hung up on designers) in the story.