Scandal Mountain Vermont art and antique dealer Edie Brown has a lot of her plate – her art forger mother is in prison, she has bills that need paying and an overflowing septic system that has to be repaired.

Then she finds a piece of art, a dark collage, potentially created by “outsider” artist Vespa. If Edie can determine its provenance, could her money woes be over? But the hunt leads down a path of danger with connections that wouldn’t hesitate to eliminate anyone threatening their art scheme.

While there was a good mystery to this, I found it hard to connect with the characters. For me, there were stereotypical aspects to the bad guys and some of the secondary characters weren’t fully developed enough to be intriguing. I didn’t race to get back to reading this book.

3 stars