Jill Elizabeth Nelson Reluctant Burglar

Reluctant Burglar

Jill Elizabeth Nelson

Multnomah, Aug 2006, $12.99

ISBN: 1590526864

Desiree Jacobs pulls off the ploy of masquerading as Olivia Layton of the National Antiquities Society so that she can walk out with a genuine Renoir from the Boston Public Museum of Arts & Antiquities. She returns a few minutes later to the museum whose chief Jacqueline Taylor hires Desi's firm, HJ Security to enhance the museum's security.

Not long afterward, FBI Agent Tony Lucano, who works art thefts, informs Desi that her beloved father was professionally murdered in his Rome hotel room. Tony and his partner Steve Crane assume she was her dad's art thief cohort and knows where the loot is. Desi believes her father was innocent until an assault in her apartment by someone who believes, like the two feds, that she partnered with her dad. She begins to think about her father's love for acrostics and soon solves a puzzle he left for her, which leads her to stolen art and a note telling her that her father was a thief and to trust no one. Desi wants to depend on Tony, who she is attracted to, but does not believe he would care about her interests; alone she risks getting killed by a vicious international art thief.

The RELUCTANT BURGLAR is an entertaining police procedural with Christian and romantic subplots enhancing the story line. Desi is terrific as a beleaguered heroine not sure who to turn to except God while the devout Tony prays she is innocent though his "aside discussions" with the Lord disrupts the pacing. Still fans who appreciate a slightly different but well written inspirational romantic mystery will enjoy the escapades of Desi and Tony supported by a strong secondary cast.

Harriet Klausner