Fatal Impressions by Reba White Williams

Be careful what you wish for.  Dinah Greene, owner and operator of Greene's Art Galley in Manhattan, was thrilled when her proposal for hanging art in the corporate offices of megafirm DDD&W.  But her excitement is short-lived.  As soon as she arrived to start work, things started to go awry.  Although the company has no art hanging on its walls, there is a woman with the job title of art curator, and she is adamantly opposed to Dinah and her work.  She yells at Dinah repeatedly and makes threats to get her fired.  Dinah overhears two women having a physical altercation in the restroom over a man.  She witnesses an act of almost unimaginable crudeness.  Everyone is out to get everyone else, and there is no trust or civility to be found.

Things get worse.  Determined to get done with the job as quickly as possible, Dinah goes in early to the offices to hang prints.  She sees an open office door and investigating, discovers the body of a woman.  Bad enough, but it soon becomes clear that as the person who discovered the body, Dinah is a suspect in the woman's murder.  DDD&W is more than happy to try to throw Dinah under the bus and direct the police away from their employees and corporate actions.

Dinah and her family and friends go into high gear to try to clear her.  She has a formidable team.  Her husband is the product of a very rich, very connected family.  Her cousin, Coleman, is a one-woman dynamo.  Coleman has made her art magazine very successful and just started a second magazine.  She knows everyone in the city.  Rob is a former policeman who is now a consultant on art crimes throughout the world.  Can this team find the murderer before Dinah is falsely arrested?

This is the second Coleman and Dinah Greene mystery.  Reba White Williams is very familiar with the art world she writes about.  She and her husband created what is considered the finest American art print collection of American artists, and then they split it into smaller collections that they loaned out to museums.  Her female creations are interesting characters, and the reader gets a glimpse into how the art world and the world of interlocked Manhattan connections work.  This book is recommended for mystery lovers.