The Glass Thief (A Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mystery #6)

Author:  Gigi Pandian
Genre:   Mystery/Suspense

Hardcover: Trade Paperback: Digital Book
ISBN #:  9781635115550; 9781635115558
Henery Press Publishing
274 Pages
$31.95; $15.95; $6.99 Amazon
November 12, 2019

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A locked room mystery at a Paris mansion.  A supposed ghost haunting a French family who looted treasure from Cambodia.

A reclusive thriller author writing a novel in honor of historian Jaya Jones - is it a work of fiction or a devious device to lure Jaya into solving a chilling mystery?

Three unsolved murders spanning seventy years have befallen the same French family, each taking place two nights before Christmas at their Paris mansion - and blamed on the family ghost.

When Jaya realizes the truth hits closer to home than she realized, she must risk everything as she flees San Francisco for France and Cambodia to find a missing sculpture known as the Serpent King and stop a flesh and blood killer.

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Jaya Jones is a professor of history at a San Francisco university.  She’s nearing the end of the semester when a couple of students - Wesley and Becca - bring her what appears to be an old letter that was found inside a book at the library.  Both are excited that it could be from the Gold Rush days and want to know what she thinks.  Jaya, who also has her own ‘history’ of finding treasure - for museums to display, of course - is excited for them and urges them to pursue it as part of their papers.

Meanwhile, she’s also been a huge fan of author Rick Coronado, who writes a series about adventurer Gabriella Glass.  He’s been out of sight for seven years, though, since he was found after missing for six weeks and apparently suffering from amnesia.  Now it appears that he’s begun to write again, but there’s a catch - his latest book is going to be titled The Glass Thief, with the emphasis on thief, not glass, since Glass is the last name of his protagonist - the catch being that Jaya is going to be part of the book.

But is she?  Once Jaya receives - without asking for any part of this - a couple of preview chapters, she’s intrigued.  She finds that Rick knows of her and her escapades through newspaper articles written of her and the fact that a reporter once saw one of his books in her messenger bag.  When Jaya reads the pages, she begins to wonder about the story, and after doing a little research of her own she discovers that it might not be a story after all, but a real-life tale of greed, intrigue, theft, adventure...and murder.  

Then her love Lane Peters, an ex-thief himself, surprises Jaya one evening in more ways than one.  The shock sent her running from him and she hasn’t spoken to him since, trying to decide what she’s going to do about their relationship or even if she wants to do anything about it.  

But when she gets Rick to agree to meet her to find out what he’s really after, he never shows up.  She’s also warned off doing anything at all in a most dramatic way, but Jaya doesn’t scare easily.  Now she finds herself in Paris trying to solve a long-ago murder, search for hidden treasure, and find out who wants her out of the way...

I have to say that I absolutely love Ms. Pandian's Jaya Jones mysteries.  I have never found one that disappoint, and this latest is no different.  Jaya is an enigma of a woman.  She's a professor at a university in San Francisco, but when she's not teaching she travels all over the world seeking lost treasures so that she may return them to their own countries' museums.  She loves her family but has little to do with them, involving herself instead with the friends she's made and grown to love as much, if not more, than her own family; and her relationship with former thief Lane Peters has caused strong emotions within her, and not limited to love.  She's not afraid to take risks or face danger, yet would rather not her friends join her in this.  As I said, she's an enigma.

Jaya, having received the book chapters from her idol Rick Coronado, reads between the pages as she's supposed to do: Rick is asking for her help.  But is it help in finding a ghost who supposedly killed a man seven years ago, or finding a lost treasure that more than likely led to the death?  Or is it both?

After an altercation with Lane that doesn't go well, leaving her refusing to speak to him, she tells Rick if he doesn't meet with her she won't help him.  But when he never shows, and something occurs to make her realize that there's more at stake than she at first thought, she sets out for France as soon as possible and asks an old friend for help in her quest. 

Soon it's apparent that there is more going on than a ghost wandering the grounds of an old mansion, and Jaya begins putting the puzzle together piece by piece.  But it's only when she realizes that Lane plays a bigger role in her hunt for lost treasure, and someone has been playing her much like her own tabla, that Jaya is able to see the truth for what it is.

The story is intriguing, suspenseful, and fascinating.  It's tightly woven with each thread started on it's own and pulled through slowly piece by piece to create a tapestry of misdirection and mystery intended to make the reader watch carefully for each clue that is given.  Ms. Pandian has indeed created a wonderful tale that takes us once again to other countries where many of us may never have the chance to travel.  It is an exquisite journey of history, riddles, and secrets revealed - which also bring revelations to Jaya herself.

In the end, it only leaves us wanting more, and I find myself eagerly awaiting the next adventure to see where Jaya will take us.  Highly recommended.

https://smile.amazon.com/Glass-Thief-Jones-Treasure-Mystery-ebook/dp/B07WDLNLFG/ref

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More on Gigi Pandian's Books:  https://www.fantasticfiction.com/p/gigi-pandian/