Friday, September 11, 2009

Mystery Book Review: Drawn in Blood by Andrea Kane

Mysterious Reviews, mysteries reviewed by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books, is publishing a new review of Drawn in Blood by Andrea Kane. For our blog readers, we are printing it first here in advance of its publication on our website.

Drawn in Blood by Andrea Kane

by
A Sloane Burbank Mystery

William Morrow (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 0-06-123680-2 (0061236802)
ISBN-13: 978-0-06-123680-8 (9780061236808)
Publication Date: September 2009
List Price: $24.99

Review: Drawn in Blood by Andrea Kane marks the return of attorney and former Federal agent Sloane Burbank and her lover, FBI Special Agent Derek Parker. And her current case is personal: her parent's apartment has been broken into and a valuable painting stolen.

Sloane's father, Matthew, and four good friends from college are highly respected art dealers, buying and selling notable paintings and becoming wealthy in the process. After a Monet hanging in her parent's apartment is taken, Matthew's convinced the incident isn't about stealing art, but leaving a message. He reveals an incident to Sloane (as both a father and a client) that happened over a decade ago in Hong Kong, where he and his friends witnessed a murder during the theft of a painting. And they could identify the killer. At the time they, unwisely, agreed to keep silent and forget about it. Now it looks like the past is turning into the present. The FBI is involved in the theft of the Monet and will certainly want to know the details of what happened 10 years ago. But Sloane, in her capacity as her father's lawyer, cannot tell them. She also wants to prevent Derek from being assigned to the case, believing it will damage their relationship. But then Matthew's friends and associates are killed, one by one, and Matthew knows he's next on the list. What personal and professional compromises must Sloane make to save her father?

Kane packs a lot of action and adventure into Drawn in Blood. The highly profitable transaction in forged artwork is only one of the subplots here that also include the organization of Albanian and Chinese gangs dealing in other illicit trades. Retaliation and revenge, and truth and justice, are key elements too. But the heart of the story, as it were, is the relationships between Sloane and her father, and between Sloane and Derek. It's sensitively and thoughtfully handled, especially within the midst of an exciting suspense thriller.

Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of The Betz Review for contributing her review of Drawn in Blood and to Book Trends for providing an ARC of the book for this review.

Buy from Amazon.com

If you are interested in purchasing Drawn in Blood from Amazon.com, please click the button to the right. Drawn in Blood (Kindle edition) is also available. Learn more about the Kindle, Amazon's Wireless Reading Device.

Synopsis (from the publisher): Former FBI Special Agent Sloane Burbank has seen her share of danger. She's faced down a serial killer and survived life-threatening injuries ... but she never expected that danger to invade the lives of her family.

Then her mother is viciously attacked in the posh Manhattan apartment her parents share and it quickly becomes clear that this is no ordinary robbery. The thieves were too clever, too knowledgeable, and so obviously after something of her father's. But what could a respected art dealer have done to merit such violence? When a mysterious message is left for him, Sloane knows her father's in over his head. Determined to find out the truth, Sloane discovers a deadly secret buried in his past that has made him the target of a power-hungry mobster with a lethal agenda and nothing to lose.

Sloane is desperate to save her father, but to do so she must hold on to secrets of her own—especially from FBI Special Agent Derek Parker, the man she has grown to love deeply. She knows she must tell him everything, but how can she betray her father's confidence? Can a couple who's faced so much survive this ultimate test of trust? Will they survive at all?

As the decades-old secret claims the lives of her father's oldest friends and the killer closes in on him, Sloane finds herself in foreign territory: alone, facing escalating personal danger, and hunting a moving target in a world where memories are long and loyalties are drawn in blood.

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