Ten Word Game FROM THE PUBLISHER
"Cash's Lovejoy, whose numerous escapades have earned him an army of delighted followers, is never completely out of trouble. But in Lovejoy's own world, there are those who have it in for the brash antiques dealer: his dealer, competitors, his customers, numerous delightful women (and sometimes their husbands), and the British police, aided by an avid bounty hunter. Usually Lovejoy can slide out from under, with the help of his rare skill as a "divvy," a person with the inborn ability to "divine" the authenticity of an artifact. When that doesn't work, he's very good at talking himself out of trouble. Failing all else, he runs." Lovejoy is running now. The bounty hunter is on his trail, the police want him for stealing a forgery he created himself, and he has been reduced to clerking in a bric-a-brac store catering to tourists in the city of Southampton. His plan is to flee the country on one of the port's many visiting cruise ships. This time, though, partly due to the treachery of an old flame and partly to some canny planning on the part of a clever criminal, Lovejoy is tricked into being held on a ship when it sails. He's treated royally as a passenger, but to his dismay he discovers that they need his knowledge for the commission of a crime in a foreign country that will result in one of the most daring and amazing thefts in history. But exactly what they want him to do remains a mystery. When he finally finds out, his former trouble will seem to be mere schoolboy scrapes.
FROM THE CRITICS
The New York Times
However outlandish, Lovejoy's tribulations are still more fun than what passes for entertainment on most cruise ships. And since Gash is writing with more restraint on this trip, having eased up on his usual frantic pace and cut down on the unintelligible slang, the reader is more at leisure to soak up Lovejoy's lively lectures on the antiques that make his divvy's heart go boing. Whether expounding on the fabulous history of the Amber Room or instructing us on how to fake an antique silver coffeepot from a lowly beer tankard, the rascal is without peer.
— Marilyn Stasio
Kirkus Reviews
Lovejoy's back! Lock up your daughters and wives and mistresses and mothers! Two things turn Lovejoy giddy: Women of any age and physical conformation and genuine, authentic, bona fide, true antiques, which he as a "divvy" can unerringly distinguish from fakes, imitations, and dross. Naturally, his affection for both gets him into hot water again, this time landing him aboard the Melissa, a Russia-bound cruise ship peopled with antique lovers and experts and a sizeable contingent determined to harness the divvy's talent to relieve Leningrad's Hermitage Museum of scads of Old Masters. Before they arrive, one body drops, then another, and Lovejoy's sole ally, Margaret Dainty, jumps ship, leaving him vulnerable to the wiles of many in between discourses on antique chocolate pots, imari porcelains, Edwardian amethysts, amber flummery, and Russian ikons. Amsterdam sails by, then Oslo, before finally it's time to tour Leningrad's Winter Palace, discover the real target of the ship's scammers, and head home to wallow in his customary complicated love life. As in many of the raffish hero's romps (A Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair, 2000, etc.), the plot is goofy from the get-go, but the talk and erudition are first-rate, and most women would stand in line for the chance to chat up Lovejoy.
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