Friday Barnes: Last Chance by R.A. Spratt

Title: Friday Barnes: Last Chance

Author: R.A. Spratt

Genre: Crime. Mystery

Publisher: Puffin

Published: 31^st January 2023

Format: Paperback

Pages: 288

Price: $16.99

Synopsis: Crime is afoot in the city of love!

Someone stole the Mona Lisa. Okay, it was over a hundred years ago, but a recently uncovered letter reveals that the thief forged a copy. That means that the painting in the Louvre now is a fake. And the real Mona Lisa could be anywhere!

Friday Barnes needs to find the truth – and the real painting. She’s going undercover as an art student, along with her partner-in-crime-solving, Melanie, and her staggeringly good-looking boyfrenemy, Ian.

As they watch the comings and goings of France’s most famous art gallery, they see some very strange things. Amid digital pickpockets, guerrilla graffiti and projectile perfume, Friday soon discovers that the Paris art scene is a hotbed of crime.

~*~

Friday Barnes, aged fifteen, is back. She’s still with Interpol. After getting out of hospital in Norway, she heads to Paris with Melanie as undercover art students to help Uncle Bernie and Agent Okeke find out who stole the Mona Lisa – back in 1911. Rumours swirl about the fate of the painting and whether the one hanging in the Louvre is fake. It is up to Friday and Melanie to uncover the truth with Ian, Friday’s boyfrenemy. Yet there is more to the story than just the theft of one of the most famous paintings ever. Friday notices a digital pickpocketing scam, and a famous guerrilla graffiti artist is hanging around – a lot, and Friday discovers the unsettling truth about the Paris art scene – that it is a hotbed of crime!

Friday’s Paris sojourn plays on the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa ­by Vincenzo Peruggia – in reality, it was returned in January 1914, months out from World War I. In this story, there are rumours of the one they’re viewing being a fake, so Friday needs to determine this and help Uncle Bernie and Interpol find out where the real one is. Friday has allies with Melanie and her new friends on the art course – everyone seems to be preoccupied with their own art, so Friday is able to observe and uncover many crimes going on in the Louvre – as well as working on proving that the Mona Lisa is real and trying to save Uncle Bernie from international and professional embarrassment after a rumour about where the painting almost ruins everything.

The latest Friday Barnes book has all our favourite characters in a new location – as I think the next few books might do. It feels as though we have moved on from Hillcrest Academy – as there are only so many crimes within a school that can be solved in creative ways. Friday is a character I love because she’s not the typical detective – yes, she is a genius, but she’s not the stereotype of an attractive, super talented character. She’s hopeless at sports – which I can relate to, and she is clumsy. But she embraces it – to the point that she agrees with her blunt as anything best friend Melanie, who still loves to sleep whenever she can. They’re a perfect match – they’re able to be truthful with each other, and Friday appreciates Melanie’s bluntness – and acknowledges her flaws quite openly – this makes her the kind of character that we can possibly all see something of ourselves in. The important thing about these characters is that they are real – they’re flawed and they represent the fact that we are all human and not perfect, and I think characters that are real like this are important.

Having characters like Friday and Melanie who are flawed and genuine, but also not the type of character we often expect in crime fiction or shows illustrates the breadth of characters that can be found within crime stories. I think of the other crime stories I read, and I like that there are a variety of characters that are either playing on archetypes or using the archetypes to craft a character. With the Friday Barnes characters, we see a wide range of human emotion and ways of understanding the world. Friday does this in her own way which makes her so popular and endearing to so many readers. This is a fun series, and I love that each cover reflects something fun about the book – and this one is no exception. I loved it and I’m very eager to see how the latest cliff hanger is dealt with in book twelve.