I gave up on Jayne Anne Krentz’s novels for a time because they started to have a sameness about them. When this came up for review, I asked for it, wanting to see if her publisher switch might have made a difference. Fortunately, there’s no goofy water religion in this book like the last one I read, but there was also nothing to make Smoke in Mirrors an exceptionally memorable book, particularly at hardcover price.

Leonora Hutton’s best friend Meredith was a scam artist whose latest scam has come back to haunt Leonora. After her death, Meredith left Leonora instructions regarding a large sum of money that Meredith had embezzled from an endowment at a college, money Leonora intends to return. When Thomas Walker comes to Leonora to get the money back, she’s offended that he thinks she was in on the scam. Leonora has the key to a safety deposit box that will tell her how to get the money, but the box also contains a book about Mirror House on the college’s campus and instructions to give the book to Thomas and his brother, Deke, whose wife supposedly killed herself the year before. Beginning to suspect that Meredith was murdered, Leonora proposes to Thomas that they work together to find out what happened to Meredith and Deke’s wife. He agrees, and she takes a job at Mirror House where Meredith worked when she embezzled the money.

Leonora is a librarian and typical Krentz heroine, smart and spunky with witty repartee. She is loyal to Meredith, even though she’d also been burned by her and is determined to find out what really happened to her dead friend. Leonora is not bad at sleuthing, and she’s even better at sparring with Thomas.

Thomas is as loyal to Deke as Leonora is to Meredith. Deke is determined that his wife, Bethany, was murdered and spins many conspiracy theories as to how it was done. Thomas indulges Deke because he loves him and because he hopes the investigation will bring him out of his obsession. Working with Leonora is a bonus for Thomas. Like the typical Jayne Ann Krentz hero he is, he’s attracted to her as soon as he meets her, and soon becomes quite protective of her.

The suspense and the romance equally drive the story. Leonora and Thomas work closely and are together through almost the entire book. I think I enjoyed the romance a bit better than the suspense, however. Leonora and Thomas made a nice couple and complemented each other well. There were some nice secondary romances that I enjoyed and that added to the book. These included Deke and his yoga trainer Cassie, the sheriff and a mathematician’s daughter, and Leonora’s grandmother and a man living in her retirement community, Herb. Leonora’s budding friendship with Cassie, Deke’s love interest, was also a nice touch.

While the suspense kept me reading, it didn’t exactly keep me on the edge of my seat. The setting, Mirror House, a mansion filled with antique mirrors, lent a gothic tone to the book. There were a few possibilities as to who the murderer was, and I didn’t really see the eventual culprit or reason coming, but I also really wouldn’t have cared that much if they hadn’t solved the mystery. Maybe Krentz made Leonora too capable for me to worry about her, since in the end I wasn’t in suspense about her fate.

I’d love to be able to say that Smoke in Mirrors put me back on the Krentz bandwagon, but I can’t. What I can say is that Krentz fans will no doubt enjoy this book, but for me it ended up as just an average read – okay as suspense/okay as romance – with nothing particularly unique to make it all that memorable.