Thirty Feet Under

Wodhams’s fleet and fun sophomore novel (after Declan Tucker’s Grand Debut) follows a 32-year-old FBI intern and a down-on-his-luck antiques dealer as they collide with a dangerous smuggling ring. Bored by a string of ho-hum assignments, art crimes intern Kate Taylor perks up when Lucas Rosi, a handsome agent with Italy’s Carabinieri Art Squad, calls and asks for the FBI’s help tracking down an ancient marble sphinx that was stolen from an Italian museum. Kate leaps at the assignment, and dreams up a sting using valuable gold earrings once owned by Alexander the Great’s mother as bait. Meanwhile, in New York City, morally flexible antiques dealer Paul Klugman is trying to keep his business afloat to avoid working in his father’s chain of dollar stores. Self-centered and not prone to asking too many questions, Paul embraces a shady saving grace from wealthy art collector Harry, who offers him the sale of a rare vase. Eventually, Kate’s sting intersects with Paul’s business plan, entangling both in a vast conspiracy that threatens their lives. Though Wodhams’s flawed, sometimes bumbling leads can be frustrating company,, his plotting and prose are breezy and amusing. This screen-ready adventure offers a welcome dose of escapism. (Mar.)