February's ARC

We're having record breaking snow here, so it is good that I picked the right book to read this month.  Dear Darcy at Art and Sole is once again preparing for her monthly Artist Reading Club and my entry this month is

This is what the book looks like if you buy it through Barnes and Noble.

• ISBN-13: 9780446508735
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Publication date: 5/1/2008
• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Pages: 320
• Series: Regan Reilly Series, #3
• Product dimensions: 4.25 (w) x 6.87 (h) x 1.00 (d)

The specifics of the book are above, but this is a bit misleading, since my publication edition is dated 1995

and published by Time Warner.  My book is also a hardback with a nice dust jacket. This is what my book looks like, and although the cover is decidedly different, the plot is not.

This is the first book I've read by Carol Higgins Clark and I have never read anything by her mother,  Mary Higgins Clark, either.

The plot revolves around Regan Reilly, a private investigator who lives in Los Angeles, but joins her parents, a mystery writing mother, Nora, and funeral director father, Luke, along with some friends, Kendra and Sam Woods, who travel to Aspen, Colorado on a skiing vacation.

Although Regan secretly wishes for a bit of romance on the slopes, there is no hint of a gratuitous sex scene, something I found a bit refreshing.  And speaking of slopes, this book was supposed to be about skiing, but there was not very much of that.  Instead, there were several thefts of priceless and not-so-priceless paintings, including some stolen from Kendra and Sam, whose caretaker, Eben, is also missing.

Everyone except Regan believes Eben is guilty, but Regan refuses to accept this.  After all, she was the one who introduced Eben to Louis, a friend who moved to Aspen and purchased a restaurant where a famous painting would soon be on display.  Add to that, the fact that Louis recommended Eben to Kendra and Sam, and you have an inkling why Regan felt she had to get involved.

Confused?  I guess that is my fault.  I wanted this to be a great mystery, a real page turner, but it left me a bit icy (yes, pun intended).  Although I really enjoyed the bit of history of Aspen I was introduced to by way of Geraldine Spoonfellow, the quirky septuagenarian who is giving a priceless painting to the town and allowing Louis to show in his restaurant, I found her antics a bit confusing and awkward at times, thanks to Clark's writings.

Then there is Ida, the mother of another character, who vacations in Aspen once a year and spends time there working at a dry cleaning establishment, just like she normally works in her home town back east.  Now who goes to Aspen on vacation and works in a dry cleaning establishment?  Well, Ida does, it seems, and she finds a critical clue in the coat pocket left by one of the thieves. From then on, Ida plays a crucial role in taking down the thieves.

I'm not sure how much of this book I'm supposed to expose, but if I were a reviewer, I would give it maybe a two (out of five).  Although I didn't put Geraldine's secret together until it was nearly time for the reveal, I did correctly guess the other art thief long before his identity became apparent.

What was originally known by the reader was that Eben had been captured by two art thieves, one of whom Eben had been with in prison.  What wasn't known was the third art thief, whose identity was revealed in the final pages of the book.  Although I can't recommend this book, I won't give the final showdown away.

So, you ask, what did I like about this book?  I liked that it was quick to read.  It took me less than four hours, and I am NOT a fast reader.  Just ask anyone who ever went to school with me, or whose blog I visit.  I read each and every word.

I also liked the scenes between Ida (the dry cleaning sleuth) and Regan.  They were honest and informative, far more so than anything Clark wrote about the ski slopes.

I didn't like the cheesy dialogue, or the attempt at humor Clark imparts on her readers.  And even though it was a quick read, it was not fulfilling.  I thought there was too much fluff for the book to be a best seller.  As with many books of this type, both the central and supporting characters are used to invoke comic relief.

Mystery writers would probably call this genre a "cozy."  According to Wikipedia,

Cozy mysteries, also referred to simply as "cozies," are a subgenre of crime fiction in which sex and violence are downplayed or treated humorously, and the crime and detection take place in a small, socially intimate community. The term was first coined in the late 20th century when various writers produced work in an attempt to re-create the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.

So this cozy deserved a cozy.  A cozy in the form of a wall hanging, that is!

I decided to make a cozy art quilt collage.  I began by gluing real poinsettia leaves to a piece of fabric I scrunched together at one point.  I also used some of my hand dyed fabric to represent the mantle of a ski lodge on which the poinsettia plant would sit.  Poinsettias were often referenced at the ski lodge and in Louis's restaurant, as well as the homes of the Reilley's and the Woods'.  To balance this, I added the bit of dark blue above the mantle to represent the icy weather conditions.

Using a chocolate wrapper as inspiration, I created a snowflake, only my second ever, and very appropriate for today.  I know it left much to be desired, but this is an art quilt, not a work of art.

Next, I auditioned all the pieces and chose the spots for each of these  pieces.  Then I backed each piece, except the large background, using wonder under.

Sadly, when I did, all the gel medium I applied to the outside of the poinsettia leaves came off on my iron and the leaves turned dark and brittle in spots.  Too late to turn back,

I sewed all the pieces to the substrate, then added the backing.  Both the front and back fabrics were made from old bed sheets.  I've mentioned before how inexpensive it is to purchase old bed sheets at thrift stores or garage sales, or to pluck from your own linen closet once the sheet has outlived its life expectancy.  Far cheaper in fact, than buying even one yard of good muslin!

This is what the art quilt looks like when I scanned it.  The main part of this piece is about 8 inches by 10 inches.  And since Darcy has been so good to me, I plan to send it to her as my way of thanking her for adding my name to the list each month.  She didn't have to do that, and I appreciate her.  As soon as I have Darcy's address, it will be on its way to her.

I also want to thank those of you who visited me last month, even though I was unable to do the same.  I'll be around to visit this month, though.  It's a promise!

Now it goes without saying, please see what the other ARC members have to say this month.