Kate's struggling to rebuild her life after losing her LAPD job and even worse, custody of her daughter as a result of her opioid addiction. She's trying to create a PI business- not easy- but she's especially intrigued when Milt Starling comes to her claiming that his daughter Margot, an artist, did not, as the police have concluded, commit suicide. Little does Kate know how dark the art world can be and little did Milt know what Margot was dealing with. Kate's more or less on her own with this case with the exception of a former colleague now working financial crimes. As with so many mysteries, there are good twists so no spoilers from me. Know that it does move around in time (might take a second to place where you are) but that works as Margot's story unfolds. I liked this for the strong female characters and the tricky case. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A good read, a nice debut, and here's hoping we see more from Kenna soon.

This debut story is told from a number of viewpoints.

Kate Myles is a former LAPD officer who was invalided out after having her car hit in a police chase which broke vertebrae in her back and neck and left with constant pain and an opioid addiction. Her marriage, which was already in trouble before the accident, ended acrimoniously. She doesn't care about the husband who was cheating on her before they divorced, but she doesn't want to lose her connection with her young daughter. Her ex used her addiction to force a custody arrangement that isn't in her favor.

Now she's clean, beyond drinking a little too much, and working as a private investigator. When a man comes to her to look into the supposed suicide of his daughter, she isn't excited. But she needs the money and knows the police investigator who had the case as someone who doesn't want to work hard and is always looking for the easy solution.

We hear from Margot Starling who was a troubled person with mental issues who was also a very talented artist who made trends in the art world. One of her projects had her cutting the names of her past lovers into her stomach with an x-acto knife and painting a picture of it. Another had her sneaking a camera into a jail and then painting what she saw. She had quite a few enemies, many of them powerful, who would very much prefer that she was dead.

Kate learns about Margot's potential enemies as she begins her investigation, and she also stumbles into forgery and money laundering scheme which puts her at odds with the FBI and the police department where she worked.

The story was well-written and exciting. I enjoyed all of the various points of view which help paint a picture of Margot's life. I also enjoyed learning more of Kate's story.

An engaging crime novel - it offered everything you would expect in the genre.
Shifting perspectives and a multitude of characters, showcasing the seedy underworld of the city.

This book is great! Would definitely recommend. Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Unfortunately, I have been locked out of my netgalley account for a few months and was not able to see which books I had on my list or even know to check if they downloaded properly, in order to properly read and review. I do apologize and am doing a 3 for neutral. Will update once I’m able to obtain a copy and read!

What Meets the Eye certainly grabs the reader's attention, has a great plot, an interesting and relentless PI who was a previous opioid addict, and a world where deceit and money might walk hand in hand. Alex Kenna was able to provide the reader with an engrossing story, and fully developed interesting characters, that might certainly resemble those who live and what happens in the somewhat shady contemporaneous art market.
I thank the author, his publisher, and NetGalley for a free copy of this book; above is my sincere opinion.

Stacked with stellar female characters, this novel is an incredibly immersive mystery. Shifting perspectives and timelines give readers a glimpse into the entire universe of the characters rather than narrowing focus to one viewpoint. Great characters paired with a compelling plot make for a novel I'd recommend to any thriller fan.

*Thank you to the publisher and #NetGalley for the chance to review this ARC in exchange for an unbiased review*

What a debute! I love have an opioid abuser becomes a PI. The crime and sleuthing were so good! Top knotch. As was Kenna's writing.
I loved it!

A detective novel with a bite. I loved this book and the main character in it. Kate was a very interesting character to follow, and I thought the Mystery at the heart of this was really well done and interesting. I found the characters really well written, and I instantly was in the story. The plot and the twists and turns were really well developed, and I loved Margot and her wit, and the time jump chapters seeing hoe everything was started in motions in some ways years before what ultimately happened. Really great book.

Kate is trying to keep her head above water and put the past behind her. Now as a PI she has taken on a new case of a father confined his daughter did not as the cops assume commit suicide. Who's the daughter Margot a very famous artist in LA who is notoriously known in the art scene Kate agrees to investigate honestly thinking not much will be there to find but God is she wrong what awaits her is murder, the Mob, art forgery, scandal and a cover up years in the making and Kate will soon learn nothing is what meets the eye.

What a great crime novel! The plot is original and believable, the characters are realistic, and the writing is excellent. I was drawn into the story from the beginning and kept turning pages till I finished it. I'll be looking for more books by this author.
I love the main character Margot Starling. She's beautiful and talented but also an out of control, loose cannon who lets her ambition get ahead of her common sense and her reputation. Not wholly original in its concept but the execution works for me so that's all that matters.

Kate Myles is now a private detective after a forced medical leave from the LAPD due to an accident. She is struggling to get by, and her ex-husband has custody of their daughter. she takes on a case about an artist who is now dead. Her parents don't believe it was suicide, but that is what the police called it. There are some questionable things in the autopsy that could make it murder. Then the FBI gets involved because Aksel Berkland has disappeared. This has a lot to do with the art world and art pieces. Can she find out what really happened to Margot Starling? At what cost? I really enjoyed the characters in this story. It was quite entertaining to read. I voluntarily reviewed an ARC of this book.

ABSOLUTE GORGEOUS!
This is a book I will keep recommending to everyone!
I hope it can be published here in Portugal too

A solid crime novel – interesting story, good character development and serious sleuthing. There is a bit of slackness in the middle, but overall, a well written book.

After a serious accident, Kate Myles, a police detective, struggles to get her life back on track. As she takes to drinking, her husband John divorces her and also gains custody of her daughter Amelia. After a period of discipline, she starts private detective work. Margot Starling, a leading and unconventional artist is found dead, hanging, in her home. The police declare it a case of suicide but her dad is not convinced and approaches Kate. As she learns of how the police led by Bennett reached its conclusions, Kate feels this is a case worth revisiting. The only person in the force she can trust is Luke who has been shunted to financial crimes as a result of a run-in with some others on the force. As Kate investigates, she finds a murky underworld, dealing with fake paintings and money laundering.


The strength of the book is in the very credible detective work. I liked the shades to Kate’s character, as also Margot’s. The build-up of the plot, as more of Margot’s life since she graduated from art school is revealed, is very well written. There is a bit of tedious detail in parts leading to some slack in the middle.

Overall, a strong crime novel.

My rating: 4.25 / 5.

Kate Myles is an ex-police officer turned private detective who is attempting to turn her life around after a traumatic series of events. A work injury led to an opioid addiction, the end of her marriage, and the loss of custody of her daughter. She is hired to investigate the death by hanging of a tempestuous artist named Margot Starling. Margot’s father does not believe it is suicide. I was intrigued by the depiction of the art world, and appreciated that both women were fully fleshed-out, complicated characters. The other viewpoints in the novel were a little confusing and unnecessary, and brought down the rating a little bit, but all in all, this was an enjoyable mystery with nuanced, imperfect female characters.

I enjoy the characterisation of Margot Starling: the gorgeous, violent, talented artist whose ambition fed her hunger for making art that shocked the world, that made a statement, without care if her reputation gets slammed from her controversies. Not wholly original but the execution works for me so that's all that matters.

I love Luke and Kate's relationship: professional, with a potential for more through the hints in body language, thoughts and dialogue that can be (and was) interpreted in two ways. Considering the context, the messiness of their personal lives and the intertwined murder and forgery cases, the pacing of the relationship was great. I'm happy the book wasn't focused on getting them "officially" together by the end and the characters recognized the potential of their relationship without ignoring their responsibilities and having their priorities straight.

I could tell when the novel was trying to distract me and point me in the wrong direction of who were the culprits for the murder and the forgeries, but I was not fooled! However, that meant a job well done.

Thanks to Netgalley and Crooked Lane Books for providing me with the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

“Margot’s email history was a curiosity cabinet of wounded male egos.”

Kate’s latest case as a private investigator has her looking into the death of Margo, a rising star in the art world. While the police ruled Margo’s death a suicide, her father isn’t convinced and the clues keep pointing to murder. The case brings Kate into contact with her sexy former police force partner and runs her afoul of her terrible ex-husband who blackmailed her into an unfair custody arrangement. As the list of people who wanted Margo dead rises, so does the risk to Kate and her young daughter.

I found Kate to be a likable protagonist who I couldn’t help but cheer for. She’s imperfect, but she’s trying to get her life back on track after her divorce, health crisis, and career change. Her husband, however, is such a jerk, it makes it hard to understand how they ended up in a relationship, despite the fact that it’s explained that they married after Kate became pregnant. Kate’s moxie and strategic mind, plus her experience and connections from her time on the force give her all the tools she needs to solve the case.

I found the focus on art and the art world fascinating. There are a plethora of suspects, which keeps the reader guessing whodunnit. Margo made a great character in that she had characteristics that made me love her, hate her, and empathize with her.

The perspective moves between a large cast of characters and points in time. While it’s cool to have the opportunity to get into the head of the victim and so many suspects as well as the sleuth protagonist, at times I struggled to keep track of who was who when the perspective and/or time period switched. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this book so much, I found it hard to put down. I can’t wait to read the author’s next novel. I hope that this turns into a series because there’s so much to explored with Kate’s character.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Thanks to Crooked Lane Books for providing an Advance Reader Copy via NetGalley.

As a person with a deep interest in art, I found the very concept of this book fascinating. I haven't read books revolving around art forgeries before, so when I was given access to this book I was really excited.

As mentioned in the book description, the story follows Kate Myles, a private investigator following the case of a death of a painter called Margot, however, Kate also has her personal problems to attend to, making the book focus on two plots simultaneously in an excellent and enjoyable way, especially taking into consideration that they overlap at times.

The novel introduces a range of different characters, some certainly more positive, and some downright negative. Kate, herself, is also a flawed character, with her struggles and problems, with her past coming back to haunt her every now and then. Margot is flawed too and as the book progresses we get to learn more about her artistic genius but also her other behaviours. However, this makes the book realistic and the characters human.

While "What Meets The Eye" was an easy and enjoyable read, there were some downsides too - personally, I wasn't a fan of the perspective changes that occurred throughout the book. While their purpose - introducing depth to characters and showing what was happening behind the scenes, something that Kate wouldn't be able to find out, it was just messy. The times were constantly changing, the names as well, and it was off-putting at times because not every detail provided in this way was necessary for the plot. Also, the big reveal of the villain seemed overdone and instead of the shock it was supposed to create, it just made me feel confused and feel slight disbelief at what has actually occurred - Kate shared my thought. It made sense but it wasn't satisfactory, which was a bit disappointing.

Overall, it was an interesting book and despite the negatives, I still enjoyed my time reading the novel, I couldn't put it down most of the time.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me the opportunity to read and review this novel. I am rating this book based the stars due to lack of time to leave a full review. #NetGalley

Really loved this book. It hooks you from the beginning, very interesting characters and really liked the mixture of current time and past time and the switch on the chapters from the different characters point of view. Really liked the ending but I want to learn more about what happens to the main characters after, I hope there's a second book coming out 😊

Thank you to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for providing me with an E-Arc of this book in exchange for an honest review!

★★★★/4

Alex Kenna’s debut novel centers around Kate Myles, a promising Los Angeles police detective, until an accident and opioid addiction blew up her family and destroyed her career. While she stuggles to rebuild her life, she tries her hand at private detective work.
When renowned artist Margot Starling's found dead in her apartment, the cause of death was assumed to be suicide. With a troubled past and a closetful of secrets, it looked like it was a chronicle of a death foretold. But his father differs, so, he hires Kate to investigate into her daughter's strange demise.

I was on the edge of my sit while reading this most of the time. Kennas’s writing is accessible and fast-paced, this book despicts a very poignant reflection on what it means to be — an artist and suffer for your art. Specially how the toxic relationships we find along the way shapes us and changes us; sometimes into shapes that we didn't think we were possible.
We get to see our protagonists, both Kate and Margot, navigate through relationships with different men in their lives — boyfriends, ex-husband, coworkers — and these come with their own set of power dynamics. As a character, each of them are individually different: Kate road to recovering through an opiod addiction and learning to deal with cronical pain, while on the other hand Margot a fairly confident woman in her own morality, in the supremacy of it, even despite her position within a flawed art world that she has chosen to opt in to.

One of the aspects of What Meets the Eye that struck me most was our protagonist’s relationship with her past issues and how she deals with them in order to get her case together and find out what happened to Margot. Instead of giving up, she goes ahead and passes all the tests to prove herself, and dismantle an organization that follows a dirty trail that leads straight into the heart of the city's deadly underworld.
The depiction of the characters felt so raw and real, and Kenna did an amazing job of capturing the complexity of the different dynamics between the two female protagonists.

The only thing I wished was different was to only have two point of views: Kate's and Margot's. In between her pov's, we get other characters, that are relevant to the story but that I kinda felt unnecessary. We could as well meet the same information from our two protagonists. But overall, I enjoyed reading this story so much, what Kenna delivers is so much more nuanced and depth that I was expecting, which I loved.

What Meets the Eye by Alex Kenna is a smartly crafted thriller mystery set in the art world with an interesting set of morally grey and complex cast of characters. An intriguing look at the art world itself, identity, betrayal and retribution. I was amazed by how Kenna designed each of the characters they felt fleshed out, making them even the most unlikable ones.

I highly recommend this pulse-pounding story filled of secrets, retribution within the art and forgery world, to anyone who wants to read an intense thriller filled with twists and turns and such well crafted characters that made the story unique in its genre.

What Meets the Eye by Alex Kenna comes out December 6th 2022!