Reviewed by Dan
TITLE: Murder in the Arts District
SERIES: Chanse MacLeod Mysteries #7
AUTHOR: Greg Herren
PUBLISHER: Bold Stroke Books
LENGTH: 264 Pages
BLURB:
When neither the cops nor their insurance company believes a wealthy gay couple’s valuable art collection was stolen, they hire Chanse MacLeod to track down the thieves and the missing art. Chanse isn’t entirely sure he believes the couple, either—especially when it turns out some of the art may have been forgeries. The trail of the art leads him to a new gallery on Julia Street in the Arts District opened by a couple new to town that seem to have no past. When one of them turns up dead and the other vanishes, it’s now up to Chanse to find not only the missing art, but a ruthless murderer who will kill anyone who gets in the way.
REVIEW:
This is the seventh, and last Chanse MacLeod mystery. I’ve got to be really honest and say I really liked this one in places, and I really disliked it in places as well. By about the 50% point, I had decided I despised Chanse MacLeod. Honestly, I haven’t liked him much in the previous three books, but in this book I was actually swearing out loud at my kindle. My husband even came out of the other room and asked what I was so worked up about!
Chanse is one of the most annoying characters I’ve read in recent memory. He is pathetic when it comes to personal relationships. In book two, he never understood what he had with Paul until after Paul was murdered. Then he moved on to Jude, who he treated horribly. His latest relationship with Rory is in the toilet in this book because Chanse refuses to wake up and admit he has feelings for Rory, even though Rory has been hinting it might be time to take things to the next level.
Then there is Chanse’s renewed dependence on pain meds to combat a back injury that occurred when his car was hit by a police cruiser. The doctor has offered a simple cortisone shot that will relieve the pain for weeks, if not months, but Chanse’s martyr complex won’t allow him to get the shot. He would rather survive on Vicodin and Oxycontin.
In Chanse’s latest case, he has been hired by a very wealthy gay couple to investigate who may have stolen three very expensive paintings from their estate. The paintings have just surfaced after being missing since World War II, and since there was no clear chain of custody, or provenance, on the paintings, they could not be insured.
As Chanse delves ever deeper into the mystery, and the bodies start piling up, it appears there is much more to the story than Chanse has been told. Or maybe it is just the Oxycontin talking?
As I said, I despised Chanse by half way through the book, and came really close to calling this one a “did not finish”. I kept going though, and was happy with the conclusion of the series, and the windup that was covered in the epilogue. The things which had annoyed me were rectified, so I was left happy.
I would say it is a testimony to Mr. Herren’s writing that he can write a character that you really like in one book, and despise in another. His character work, and storyline work are excellent. I recommend this final installment in the Chanse MacLeod series. In summary, we rated three of the books 5.0 (Books 1, 2 & 3), three of them 3.5 (Books 4, 5 & 6), and this one (Book 7) a 4.0. In my opinion, if you are fan of mysteries, you should consider giving the series a shot.
RATING: 
BUY LINKS:
I love to read characters that I hate. They’ve got to be much more difficult to write and they’re hard for me to forget.