Clean break
Subtitle: a Kate Brannigan mystery
By: Val McDermid.
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 1995
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 283
Subjects: Brannigan, Kate (Fictitious character) -- Fiction; Women private investigators -- England -- Manchester -- Fiction; Art thefts -- Fiction; Sabotage -- Fiction; Manchester (England) -- Fiction
Genres: Fiction.
Description: Kate, a Manchester-based private investigator, is definitely not amused when thieves steal a Monet painting from a stately home where she has arranged the security. The theft is clearly the work of professionals: they penetrate alarm systems, enter quickly, grab only what they have come for, and disappear into the night.

Kate feels responsible. And, according to her contract, she owes Henry Naismith, owner of Birchfield Place, thirty hours of her time to try to find his Monet. The police will search, too, but Kate has sources that the authorities could never touch.

And if finding a missing Monet isn't difficult enough, Kate must also confront a deadly case of industrial sabotage. Someone may be intent on putting the Kerrchem company out of business. What seems at first to be a simple instance of blackmail soon turns into a shocking case of murder.