I can't blame you for thinking that I enjoy reading books by Neal Sanders, because I do. I enjoy his writing, and I enjoy his stories. And if I had an estate that was worth worrying about, I think I would hire him to organize it. This is one of those books where the plots pile on top of other plots and you have to wonder how the author is going to untangle them and bring the story back together. That's the thing about life: it's not just one simple plot like they write for TV scripts where the entire case has been researched, brought to trial, and adjudicated in forty-five minutes or less. Life is a complicated but integrated system, no matter how much we try to screw it up.
Deadly Deeds is part of Sanders' Garden Club Gang series. One of the members dies in a very expensive nursing home/retirement community under, what appears to be, natural circumstances. But the Gang has its doubts.
This investigation is layered on top of a previous investigation involving the gang bringing down a crooked car dealer.
And that, in turn, is remotely entangled with an investigation at a fairground.
Since the retirement community houses very wealthy clients, those clients tend to have valuable possessions, including valuable paintings. When they die, the families believe that the sale of those paintings will generate a substantial financial return and are shocked when the painting turns out to be false. Although this element of the story is certainly feasible, the speed and the skill of the forger is a bit of a stretch.
In some serial stories, one has to have read the previous books to understand what is going on, but Sanders does a masterful job of providing enough backstory information to provide depth to the characters while allowing the present story to carry its own narrative.
As I said before, I enjoy reading Neal Sanders' books.