The Frame-Up

Bond (Mr. and Mrs. Witch) sketches out a slow-paced art heist in this flawed romantasy. Magical master art forger Dani Poissant has been on the outs with the secret world of magical thieves in which she grew up since she turned in her famous art thief mother, Maria, to the FBI when she was 17. Now Maria’s mysterious former partner, Archer, offers Dani the chance to reconcile with her mother and get back to her old life in her old home if Dani will steal a portrait of Archer from the soon to be auctioned Hackworth Collection kept in “the Fortress of Art,” a place “tougher to get into than Fort Knox.” Dani accepts, going undercover as a security guard and managing to win over her mother’s old team. Along the way, however, she realizes there’s much more to Archer, and his portrait, than meets the eye. What should be a snappy, tightly plotted narrative gets bogged down by an unconvincing love triangle between Dani and the barely sketched out characters of Brad Hackworth, the personalityless heir of the Hackworth Collection, and Elliot, a fellow magical criminal, as well as overwrought excerpts from an 1890s journal written by Dani’s ancestor. Readers looking for excitement will have to find it elsewhere. Agent: Kate McKean, Howard Morhaim Literary. (Feb.)