Danielle O'Rourke was once married to one of the wealthiest men in San Francisco, but she could not tolerate his wandering eye and divorced him. She didn't ask for, nor receive, money from him but made it on her own as a vice president of the Devor Museum of Art in charge of fund- raising. On the evening of a big gala with about six- hundred mega-wealthy collectors present, disaster strikes; an up and coming young artist falls, jumps, or is pushed out of Dani's second story office window. How he got into her office is a mystery, as the door is always locked. Even though Dani was on the ground floor schmoozing with the clientele at the time of the accident, she is number one on the police department's suspect list, for several reasons.

Dani feels she has to clear her own name, as it doesn't look like the police are looking at anyone but her. Her pursuit of justice takes her from San Francisco to Santa Fe, New Mexico. It takes a while and the help of one of San Francisco's finest, who just happens to be in Santa Fe at the same time as Dani, to find the guilty culprit.

MURDER IN THE ABSTRACT is a comfortable read. The characters were a little confusing as they had similar names, beginning with the same letter in some cases. The narrative was well constructed, and the plot was a study in art -- painting it, copying it, stealing it, and killing for it.

Book Summary

Danielle O'Rourke's gala evening at the Devor Museum ends in catastrophe when the body of a young artist plummets from her office window. The police label it murder and suspect Dani, the Museum's chief fund raiser.

Self-preservation and an insider's understanding of how money moves the art world drive her to investigate who might have a motive for murder. Dani's playboy ex-husband and a green-eyed cop complicate matters as her search moves through the fashionable worlds of San Francisco and Santa Fe.

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