Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: The Russian Wife by Barry Maitland

 

The fourteenth book in the Brock and Kolla series by Australian author Barry Maitland came my way over the holidays and of course I had to stop everything to read it. One of the appealing aspects of this series is the way the characters grow and progress in their careers. I had feared when reading the first books about the duo that Kathy Kolla would always be second chair to the older David Brock. Not so. In this title, she has moved up the ranks to the rank of Detective Chief Inspector, leading her own team of homicide investigators.

Brock has come out of retirement and returned to the Met, this time assigned to the Fraud team. He doesn’t know anything about the work and struggles to find meaning in it. He’s assigned to the task of talking to a wealthy couple about a scam email she received, something they would ordinarily not address but Julian Babbington is a cousin of one of the Assistant Commissioners and therefore receives special treatment. He owns one of the largest privately owned collections of art in the country so when Nadia Babbington is found dead 24 hours after the Met’s visit, Brock’s analytical instincts are aroused. A young artist with whom she’d been associating is found dead less than a week later. While both deaths are characterized as suicide, Brock points out the potential connection to the epidemic of counterfeits sweeping the art world. The Fraud Division managers agree they need to make sure the deaths have nothing to do with the extensive art collection and Brock launches an investigation.

In the meantime Kathy Kolla is looking at the death of a man known to be violently abusive to his wife. While no one apparently could have been in the room with him when he died, the forensic evidence does not quite add up to suicide either. Two distinct story lines are juggled throughout most of the book, until one is closed out, not especially realistically, and the two team up as of old to resolve the second one, which is tortuous in its complexity.

Maitland was originally an architect and buildings always feature in his books. Here, an ancient church in need of restoration plays a significant role. He did his homework and describes the issues around the wheeling and dealing in high-priced art, including the collectors who secretively acquire what they believe to be original masters and instead learn they have a very well done copy. The entire series is recommended.

 

·         Publisher: ‎Allen & Unwin (November 30, 2021)

·         Language: English

·         Paperback: ‎320 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎1760879649

·         ISBN-13: ‎978-1760879648

 

The Amazon Associate image system is not working, still, so please go here to pick it up. 

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2024

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.