The Lies of Fair Ladies - Hardcover

Gash, Jonathan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312076207 ISBN 13: 9780312076207

Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 1992

Synopsis

Accused of gutting a vacant old house and robbing it of its balustrades, moldings, and wallpaper in order to augment his inventory, antiques dealer Lovejoy investigates and discovers that his friend may be involved in an antiques scam. 20,000 first printing. $12,000 ad/promo.

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Reviews

In his 15th Lovejoy mystery, Gash ( The Great California Game ) again conveys "the bliss that is antiques" as his antiques dealer/sleuth returns to the deceptively idyllic English countryside of East Anglia. Here, as Lovejoy's fans well know, the picture-book scenery is the backdrop for antiques scams--this time on an uprecedentedly large scale that, when combined with a desire for revenge nurtured for centuries, provide multiple motives for murder. Accompanied--and bedded--by a bevy of fair ladies whose husbands he deftly outmaneuvers, Lovejoy investigates brutal murder and discovers an operation in which large caches of stolen antiques are hidden until it is safe to sell them. In his new assistant, the mayor's wife, Lovejoy confides fascinating antiques tips. Other memorable characters include Prammie Joe, who keeps illegally acquired antiques on a small barge hidden in the reedy landscape, and the Great Marvella, a fortune teller/masseuse/ventriloquist who employs a snake to pronounce her clients' fortunes. This gem should secure Gash's fortunes.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Irresistible rogue Lovejoy--back home in East Anglia after a stint in the States (The Great California Game, 1991), between sessions with a pet snake and its voluptuous owner, ``making smiles'' (romps in bed) with a talk-show host's wife, and training the mayor's wife, Luna, in the fine art of faking antiques--finds time to query the death of another antique scammer, old Prammie Joe, who may have fallen afoul of the plans of a dollop broker (a storer of stolen goods for ten percent of the resale price). Also afoot are a certain descendant's plans to avenge her family for deaths imposed on it back in 1694 by the Witch-Finder General, which will soon cause Lovejoy to roust the larcenous residents of the Sampney Young Ladies Academy and rescue another antique-dealer chum from a well in a priory. One more will die; the mayor will prove to have a scam of his own; and Lovejoy, of course, will find another, nubile benefactress before all is set to right. Rambunctious, ribald, and, at times, rendered in such idiosyncratic syntax as to be incomprehensible. Crammed with antique lore, historical asides, and verve. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In this British author's disappointing new work, a muddle of minor characters and colloquialisms fail to disguise the plot's insignificance. The impecunious and womanizing Lovejoy natters and noshes his way through an antiques scam for which police blame him, then finds a crony murdered in a reed-cutter's hut. Nonetheless, Lovejoy shines forth with his usual panache, dedicating some of his chauvinistic time to the mayor's wife--his "apprentice." Strictly for diehard fans, although the Arts & Entertainment Channel's weekly broadcast of Lovejoy , loosely based on the books, may spark some library demand. Previewed in Prepub Alert, 4/1/92.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0312076207
• ISBN 13: 9780312076207
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 263