A fashion lover who has a mortgage and low income turns to crime to follow her dream... although the morality is dubious, it's all in the spirit of fun. For a contest, the public are being invited to steal named items such as works of modern art in the town of Ribbon and bring them to a new fashion store to win a shopping spree. How can Samantha Kidd resist such a challenge? Wryly commenting on life, such as: "Rarely do professionals move as quickly as beauticians who hear the phrase 'I need to look younger'," she enlists help from her pals and gets going. To start with she dresses up as a grad student and steals a wooden sculpture that fits in her large handbag.

Dropping designer names and drooling over shoes, little black dresses and handbags, at the store opening Sam also finds the handbag buyer lying dead. Since the murder weapon was the fake statue Sam left to replace her stolen one, she's under police scrutiny. Her boyfriend is in Italy but she's unexpectedly got a crush on the lad who created the fake statue. Next thing, the store owners, desperate to remove bad publicity, offer Samantha, who used to be a buyer in New York, a job - to investigate secretly from the inside. She needs the work, but does she need any more complications? BUYER BEWARE!

This amateur sleuth story appeals more to women than men, and Samantha has a lovely, very well drawn cat, adding another dimension to her home life. A fashionista tells this sleuth that she has ten of a particular handbag in her closet. Buyer discounts on stock and anti-theft tags are all par for the course. Meanwhile the new buyer's credentials are being queried by current employees who would have liked the job. Hugely disappointingly, being a store employee disqualifies the art thief from the contest. If she'd known that she mightn't have taken the job. Especially since this job brings her enmity, envy and not a little danger.

I frown at the way author Diane Vallere dripfeeds Samantha with data about the dead woman, chapter by chapter, such as the fact that she was engaged to a man also in the fashion world, which would all surely have been presented to her in an employee file. Otherwise, for anyone who enjoys reading about clothes and mysteries, the Style and Error series is great fun.

Book Summary

Out of work fashion expert Samantha Kidd is strapped, until the buyer of handbags for a hot new retailer turns up murdered. Samantha snatches the victim's job, but is soon convinced the wrong person has been labeled as the perp. With patent determination and a tote bag of tenacity, this chic shamus must get a handle on the suspects, or risk being caught in the killer's clutches.