Rebecca Scherm: Unbecoming, Penguin Books US, 9780143128311, 16,00 $, paperback

“Unbecoming” comes with powerful recommendations by such well-known authors as Kate Atkinson, Tana French, Elizabeth George and Karen Joy Fowler, all with glowing quotes.   And the book does not disappoint, I can barely believe this is a debut novel.  Rebecca Scherm has written an extremely well-plotted story, a great delight to read, a mixture between suspense and coming of age and the publisher’s comparison to Hitchcock or Patricia Highsmith fits perfectly in my opinion.  

Grace or Julie as she calls herself now, lives in Paris, working as a restorer in a shady workshop where she repairs objects of art or bric a brac, probably not all of them legal or belonging to the clients her employer Jacqueline claims.  But Julie’s/Grace’s background is far from what she tells people it is, supposedly from California she claims to be on the run from an abusive boyfriend.  In truth she comes from Garland/Tennessee, where she spent a nearly picture perfect teenage life with her childhood sweetheart Riley, being virtually adopted by his mother Mrs. Graham who sees in her the daughter she never had. Her own flaky parents are too busy with twins to care much about their older child. Slowly cracks in Grace’s life appear and things start to unravel with every page.  Grace heads off to New York to study, getting a job as an assistant to an appraiser.  She becomes fascinated by the world of art, furniture and jewels she learns to appraise for auctions and estates and the people who are so very different from what she is used to in Garland. 

Shifting back and forth between Paris, New York and Garland, the puzzle is slowly put together.  In Paris Grace nervously follows the daily news of the newspaper back home. Finally she hits on what she has been looking for: the release of two young men from prison who served time for robbing the Wynne House, a museum in Grace and Riley’s hometown. They are none  other than Riley and Alls.  Alls also belonged to Grace’s inner circle, a guy very different from Riley and the secret object of her lust.  Grace was the architect of that heist gone bad but she escaped to Prague. A cat and mouse game unfolds after the release of the two and one becomes a helpless bystander as Grace’s old life catches up with her in Paris.

From the very first page Rebecca Scherm has you hooked, I hope this book finds many readers but sadly I don't think the cover treatment quite portraits what an excellent story is between the covers. I really look forward to the next novel Rebecca Schem hopefully has up her sleeves.