Jill Madison has a lunch date with her friend and mentor Judge Spivey. When she arrives at his house, she finds him, sadly, dead in his study. Already the same day she is contacted by the judge’s lawyer about a matter regarding his will. It turns out the judge has appointed her executor in his will and bequeathed his art collection and a large some of money to the Alice Marsden Center of the Arts, and some to Jill personally. His children get nothing.

Something that will surely sour his children. Though they both had a falling out with their father and haven’t been to visit in years, they assume they will inherit the lot and have to take care of his estate.

Soon rumours start that Jill had an undue influence on the judge. Jill tries to shrug it off and go about her work, at the art centre and as executor. After all, she has the first national exhibition opening soon at the art center. In between her jobs Jill does try to find out who could have killed the judge and why.

I wanted to like this story, but the author didn’t make that easy for me.

It started with Tom’s suggestion to Jill that judge Spivey’s children might kill her. As if the death of the executor is going to change the will. Probate court will simply appoint another one. Death of a beneficiary also will not change the will. Depending if the judge set any stipulations for survivorship in his will (and considering he cut his children out completely, I doubt he would have put any loop holes in his will they could benefit from) if a beneficiary dies before an estate is settled, her inheritance goes into her estate, not back into the Judge’s estate for redistribution.

I’m very disappointed that when Erika got the slayer statute wrong, neither of the lawyers in the room corrected her. Although her own lawyer told her to shut up after making a death threat. I guess that’s something.

Aside from the errors in inheritance law (I know those laws are complicated, but a little research goes a long way) the story also has little inconsistencies with the details, or timelines that didn’t add up. The most glaring one is that in one chapter Jill talks with Tom about his investigation into the death of Judge Spivey and gives him the Patterson letter, and in the next chapter Jill remembers that she forgot to tell Tom about the Patterson letter.

But most importantly, the story disappointed on the mystery. There’s loads of information on how art connoisseurs (such as jurors, appraisers and forensic investigators) look at art and determine its quality, value or provenance. There’s very little investigating the murder. Jill finds a few clues, mulls them over and then gives them to her brother the detective. The latter is a good thing (even though I’m of the opinion that Tom or the police should have found some clues, such as the Patterson letter, themselves. It was present at the crime scene.), but it makes the mystery a bit dull. Jill doesn’t start her investigation until 80% into the story.

And it makes me question why the killer thought they had anything to fear from Jill. Actually, I’m curious how they found out, because Jill never talked with them about her investigation.

I read an ARC through NetGalley.