A Cruise to Die For

In the Elkinses’ lively, well-crafted second caper featuring Alix London (after 2012’s A Dangerous Talent), Ted Ellesworth of the FBI’s Art Crime Team recruits the Harvard-educated art historian to pose as a lecturer aboard the opulent yacht of Panos Papadakis, a Greek tycoon long suspected of running a Ponzi scheme. Papadakis is about to auction off some of his multimillion-dollar art collection, and Alix—young, pretty, and possessed of an uncanny eye for spotting forgeries—easily fits in with the colorful and well-heeled group that includes Papadakis’s imperious wife, a former opera star; Izzy Clinke, a flamboyant pop singer known as Pocahontas; and the Countess of Brabant’s nephew, the charming Roland de Beauvois, who’s not who he seems. Dramatic developments include Alix getting knocked unconscious while contemplating a Manet and the murder of a master art forger in New York. Everything in this witty, mildly romantic mystery connects in surprising ways. Agent: Lisa Erbach Vance, Aaron M. Priest Literary Agency. (Sept.)