Lethal Treasure

This is the 8th entry in the "Josie Prescott Antique Mysteries" by author Jane Cleland. The protagonist buys and sells antiques and does appraisals for other businesses or individuals who need her research skills, knowledge and network of experts. She lives and work in Rocky Point, New Hampshire, a small coastal town, and in this installment, has a gorgeous, thoughtful and loving partner, Ty.  They are good friends with a couple who run a new interior design business in town, Henri and Leigh Ann Dubois. When Henri is found murdered inside a storage unit for which he had the winning auction bid, Josie gets involved in trying to help find the killer. Nothing is found in the unit that seems worth much, but Henri had previously brought Josie some very old original movie posters for appraisal and Josie and her crew begin to realize that they may be worth a great deal. There are interesting lines of investigation for the appraisal process that also may move Josie closer to finding Henri's killer, but when the murder weapon turns up in Josie's car, and supposed love letters between Henri and Josie are discovered in an e-mail account, Josie realizes someone is clever and desperate enough to frame her. Now solving the mystery has become very personal. I loved reading about the appraisal process, have a fondness for antiques, and thoroughly enjoyed the setting and the characters. I will definitely find more of these to read.

The Judas Pair

The first of a several dozen novels in the "Lovejoy" series by Jonathan Gash (pen name for John Grant). These novels have been so popular that they also spawned a long running TV series (over 70 episodes from 1986-1994). That being said, I won't go out of my way to read another because I simply did not like the character. I am interested in antique and so when I ran across some discussion of this series, I tracked down the first installment. I was immediately put off as he slapped his lover in the very first chapter and generally continued to treat her like dirt, until she was killed, and then he went for revenge.
The story line revolved around a man coming to Lovejoy to help find a legendary pair of flintlock duelling pistols, the Judas Pair. This man believes his brother bought them and was then murdered by someone who stole the guns. Initially Lovejoy thinks the man is just deluded by his grief, but as he begins to accumulate evidence, he thinks that the guns may actually exist. It's just luck that he happens upon one of the tools that he thinks originally accompanied the cased set of pistols and uses that as bait to lure the killer to him, getting his girlfriend killed in the process (not his fault admittedly). He succeeds and almost dies himself in the process. Once he has figured out who the killer really is, he goes to confront him and is, not surprisingly, challenged to a duel using the infamous pair of pistols. He doesn't die, obviously, as he figures out why the pistols are named as they are and manages to turn the tables on the killer. Lots of really interesting information about antiques and antiques' dealers, especially in England. If Lovejoy were a nicer man, I would probably read more  of these, especially since I am also such an Anglophile. The plotting was very tight and clever, so if you can see past his misogynistic nature, go for it.