Review: Genevieve Lenard is a marvelous character in a terrific book!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 30, 2014
Estelle Ryan has written an excellent first book in what is currently a series of four books.  As a matter of fact, I was about half-way through this book and just knew I wanted to read all four books and purchased the remaining three books!  The cast of characters is endearing and revolves around Genevieve Lenard, who is a very highly functioning autistic person.  It is the very fact of her autism which has given her the tools and the ability to do her job so well, which is to observe people for an art insurance firm and determine whether they are trying to perpetrate fraud.  And she is very good at that -- so good in fact that law enforcement agencies enlist her assistance, very reluctantly on her part, in solving a crime that on the surface seems merely to be some art fraud but which runs very deep into organized crime and terrorism.  Along the way she meets and is forced to work with characters who are very endearing but who force Genevieve out of her personal safety zone.  Reading how she copes with that and tries to solve the crime is a wonderful experience in my opinion.I have some friends who are at various stages along the autism spectrum and I feel that Estelle Ryan has captured the essence of a highly functioning autistic person very nicely.  Following Dr. Lenard's personal growth throughout this book is very captivating and after having finished The Gauguin ConnectionI am now reading book 2 in the series, "The Dante Connection" and am thoroughly enjoying that one, too.I highly recommend this series of books and especially The Gauguin Connection for people looking for a mystery just a bit out of the ordinary but a very enjoyable read that is very well written.