Santa Fe Rembrandt

Dawkins's ( Charleyhorse ) first mystery is a busy but hollow effort in which crimes abound and characters are delivered with carefully designed doses of charm. The very day after Quillan Davies, interim director of Santa Fe's Waldheimer Museum, departs for an extended business trip, Ginevra Prettifield, the museum's novice assistant director, is horrified to learn that a small Rembrandt has vanished; a forgery hangs in its place. Gin carefully conceals the theft from ``the pod,'' a posse of yuppie chums who are visiting on a Southwest arts tour. Tina Martinez, Gin's effervescent friend, lures two of her admirers, police lieutenant Tito Gonzales and art expert Pablo Esperanza-Ramos, into some discreet investigating. But disaster strikes again when Gin finds Pablo kneeling over one of the poddies, Raoul Query, who is unconscious with blood seeping from a head wound. Gin, oblivious to the obvious, needs the entire book to figure out who masterminded the art heist, but as a bonus she nails Raoul's attacker and sorts out a mystery that occurred some time ago--the fate of a pod member who died prior to this story. (Oct.)