Marne Davis Kellogg Perfect

Perfect

Marne Davis Kellogg

St Martin's, August 2005, $24.95, 321 pp.

ISBN 0312337329

After retiring as the highly publicized Shamrock Burglar, Kick Keswick, with her husband former Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Thomas Curtis, who moonlighted as the Samaritan Burglar, retired to their farmhouse in Provence. With the money and jewels they saved from their various heists, they have enough money to live in the most luxurious lifestyle imaginable if they so choose. Thomas gets called up from Scotland Yard occasionally to work on a tough case and Kick helps him in her own manner and style.

Now the Queen Elizabeth has asked personally for Thomas's help because some of the crown jewels were stolen by her trusted footman Bradford who helped her pack them for the royal tour she is going on. Thomas learns that Bradford changed his name to Sebastian Tremaine and is the business manager and companion for opera singer Constantin. Thomas has a plan to get Kick in position to get close to Sebastion and Constantin but she has her own methods of doing things and escapes his scrutiny the first change she gets. She tries and succeeds in meeting one of the world's richest men George Naxos and his beautiful wheelchair bound wife Alma. Kick maneuvers them into letting her visit his large isolated estate (more like at a small hamlet) in Switzerland where the rich and famous stay including Constantin and Sebastion. She concocts a daring plan to steal the jewels back from Sebastion but in this garden of Eden there lies a serpent waiting to strike at her and stop her plan from succeeding even if it means killing her.

Kick Keswick is very different than the usual heroine. She is self confident, comfortable in her own skin (even if she is twenty-five pounds overweight) and believes there isn't a jewel she can't rob given enough time. The way she maneuvers people to get them to do what she wants is a talent few people possess and the way she does it seems so reasonable at the time that readers find themselves believing she is an average person. This enjoyable crime caper is delightful and charming.

Harriet Klausner