Madonna Dilemma

A famous painting of Madonna is stolen in Rome by an American mob boss. Somewhere in the fencing of the masterpiece the painting disappears. An LA art dealer who was to fence the art work is found murdered. A mob boss, a widow, an associate and an enemy of the dead man are in a panic to find the money or the painting. An LA detective who is only interested in coasting along until early retirement is assigned to the murder case. He finds it impossible to shift the responsibility to anyone else in LAPD. While he fumbles around, the other interested persons are lying, cheating, double crossing one another and deceiving the authorities.  A comedy of errors

Madonna Dilemma by Aaron Knight was a well written comedic mystery novel. The story is about the case of the murdered art dealer. He was murdered then put into a car that was equipped with high end GPS software and was driven by this computer car from Los Angeles until the car crashed hours later on Interstate 15. Sheriff Potter was the first police officer to take over the case. He wanted to coast nicely into retirement without any excitement. As soon as he finds out about the computer system attached to the car he calls his friend Lieutenant O'Keefe from the LAPD to hand the case over to them. This case gets passed around, and many of the characters are just trying to coast by in their current jobs, without actually doing much investigative work. This Novel is full of surprises, mystery, well rounded characters and a touch of humour. I enjoyed the different components of the case, such as a missing painting worth a fortune, a mob boss, and a widow hoping to find the money or the painting before anyone else. I enjoyed reading this novel.