Allure of Elegance is a good mystery where the main character, Tina, works for an insurance agency investigating crimes to see if there is any fraud involved. She and her partner, Carlos, work alongside the police, but often have to reach out on their own because there is not enough evidence of major criminal activity to get police involvement. Here, they are looking into a robbery of a truck carrying luxury goods such as Birkin bags that can sell for thousands, sometimes even millions, of dollars.
What bumped this novel up from four to five stars is the glimpse into the lives of two groups of people I’m not familiar with: women who love to show off their expensive accessories and fundamentalist Christians, without the messy politics we hear so much about.
