I love Anne Stuart’s books. There are some that I can read over and over again with the greatest pleasure. To Love A Dark Lord, Cinderman, One More Valentine, and Crazy Like A Fox are some of her titles that I have especially enjoyed. Her last book, Shadows At Sunset was a darn good mystery, and when she is on her mark, no one can do romantic suspense better. But The Widow seemed like it came from a tired word processor. I felt like I had met these characters before, yet paradoxically they all remained strangers right through the end.

Aristide Pompasse has died. He was one of the giants of the art world, known for his haunting portraits and his penchant for young mistresses. One of his best models was his last wife Charlotte (Charlie) Thomas, whom he married when she was 17. Charlie was his love and his muse for a number of years until she broke the hold he had on her and left him. Since then, she has run a small restaurant in New York. But when she hears of Pompasse’s death, Charlie takes off for Tuscany.

When Charlie arrives at the home she shared with Pompasse, Connor Maguire is there. Connor is an Australian, a burnt-out former award-winning journalist who is now working for a sleazy tabloid. He is there under cover of being an insurance investigator, in order to sniff out the possibility that Pompasse was murdered and to try and find some juicy scandals among all the people at Pompasse’s home. And there are a lot of people, including Pompasse’s first model and mistress, Madame Antonella who is now senile and crazy; another former model and mistress Lauretta, who served as his middle-aged housekeeper; Lauretta’s husband Tomasso; Gia, Pompasse’s youngest and most recent mistress, who is a petulant little witch; Olivia, Charlie’s social butterfly mother; and Charlie’s fiance, Henry who is an older man.

There is a lot here and a lot of potential for a really good story, but it all fell flat as could be. Maguire was not at all dangerous despite the fact that he spent almost the entire book with three-day stubble and a foul mouth. He was supposed to be all burnt out from his war experiences as a journalist, but he seemed quite perky to me and got over his angst quite nicely at the end. Mostly he seemed to want to come on to Charlie because:

She was frigid. Yep, Charlie was the proverbial ice-maiden. Pompasse had not been able to thaw her at all (but then he was in his late 60’s to her 17) and she had not slept with her fiance Henry. She spends most of her time spouting off some variation of “Go to hell, Maguire,” until they do sleep together, when she thaws – of course.

But why did Charlie marry Pompasse in the first place? I never really figured it out. The mother/daughter relationship between Charlie and Olivia did not make sense either. Olivia was a selfish boy-toy collecting socialite who had pretty much ignored her daughter her whole life. Then toward the end of the book, Olivia becomes a heroine and does the “I really loved you all the time” bit. It did not make sense.

The solution to the mystery of Pompasse’s death was – well it was macabre. I don’t want to spoil it, but I will say I was in an advanced state of ick by the time it was over.

Will I buy anymore Anne Stuart novels? Yes ma’am! When she is on her mark she is one of the best around and she still has a way of moving the story – I found myself turning the pages of this one right along. But after it was over, I had no desire to go back to it. While my copies of some of her novels are quite tattered, I think this one will remain pristine.