Nothing to Declare
 Josef Kraus
 (Reviewed by The Editor - Rebecca Brown)
 2002 Wexford College Press/Watchmaker Pub.
  ISBN: 0970991703
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Follow the clues around Europe as art treasures are stolen, gamblers end up murdered, & a huge cannon is bartered for.

An international American smuggler, a world-class Polish forger, a vengeful British embassy clerk, a French police detective on the brink of retirement, an Irishman with many masks, an ancient Scottish ship & a massive artillery cannon are stirred & shaken in this tale of gambling & betrayal, love & greed, murder & fear.

Those characters, & more, are the cast of this well-written, detailed & curiously elegant tale of childhood trauma, life-long passions, double-crosses, masses of money & death around every corner in an old-fashioned Europe, in a time before the spawning of terrorists, outside of Ireland.

I liked the redemption offered in the end of Nothing to Declare & was quite sad to bid adieu to Inspector Jules Beauviér. I didn't become as attached to any one else, not even the hero & heroine, Thomas Breck & Tatiana Gregòsh, as I did to this thinking, observant, polite & compassionate policeman, & the story he attempted to unravel with the clues he found.

Nothing to Declare is like reading a classic in your grandfather's library, as sun sets through the windows on a quiet autumn evening. The tension & escapes, the excitement of the travel & the fine autos, & pure curiosity kept me riveted.

Well done! Highly recommended.

(05/25/03)

Rebecca