Policewoman Cressida Farleigh is stunned when her commanding officer sends her undercover to work as a receptionist in an art gallery. The fraud squad believe that the gallery bosses are copying Old Masters and selling the originals on the black market. Cressida's boyfriend and fellow cop, Tom, is horrified when he discovers that as part of the job, Cressida is required to get very close to the artists and to the gallery's sexy, enigmatic owner, Guy Cronje.

Uncertain that she's right for the job, Cressida soon begins to realise what she's been missing in her boring, staid life. She dumps Tom and begins an affair with artist and erotic painter Rick in order to find out information, but it's Guy she's attracted to. But Guy's long-term mistress Marcia is a partner in the gallery, and Guy also has a roving eye-he never sticks with one woman for long. Can Cressida solve the fraud case and win Guy's heart as well as his body?

I first read The Gallery when it was originally published in 1997, and oddly this 2009 edition hasn't been changed at all, so we get characters listening to tapes and other things that make the book really dated. With multiple POV shifts within the same page, lacklustre characterisation, a lot of 'telling' rather than 'showing', and a plot that's very flimsy-I can't for one moment believe that the police would be as stupid as they're made out to be in the book-this wasn't a good read. Even the sex scenes, which in 1997 were considered cutting-edge, are nothing special by today's standards. I remember enjoying this twelve years ago, but in comparison with the many erotic romance titles available now, The Gallery seems weak and uninteresting.

Reviewed by: Maija