Art Historians Books

Here it is, finally my first Vicki Bliss mystery. The story is a good one, even if not terribly interesting. Based on other works from Michaels and Peters, this is just an average effort. It could be because she was finding her grounding with new characters, but something about it didn't hook me as much as it should have. I can't help but feel that Peters couldn't think of enough story to write this one, not sure where she wanted to go, mainly drawn to characters she wished to invent. I'm sure that the follow-ups are better, and Vicki does seem a great character to follow the adventures of.

Characters were fun, especially Vicki and Tony. Her personality was a trademark type, a strong heroine with an intelligent mind, independent backbone, and curious disposition. The story would be a great mystery, yet turns out merely good simply because not enough detail filled out 243 pages. The story was a very simple one that was forced to slowly drag on because not enough substance was held.

Nothing is urgent until perhaps the end climax, but even that lacks a certain desperation usually found in intriguing stories. Rich with history, people into the castle setting will be in for a nice surprise as the couple wanders each night in search of an old legend that may not even be true. People who love mysteries but who are a virgin to Peters may be turned off by the lack of intensity, while cozy fans that are Elizabeth Peter regulars will likely feel right at home.

The first Vicky Bliss novel, this story introduces us to the large blonde academic who is interested in the legend of a lost Riemenschneider sculpture. She engages in a bet with a fellow academic, Tony, who bets that if he can find it before she can, she has to marry him.

Peters writes with ascerbic wit and wonderful characters. Vicky Bliss is an independent thinker, capable of making intriguing decisions without any help.

This is a great series- I recommend it to any mystery lover!

Elizabeth Peters books are fun, comical, gripping mysteries -- read them all!

Vicky is different from Amelia Peabody (she's tall, 20something, and a blonde bombshell with curves). Peters' spends a lot of time trying to establish this new character, and Vicky's figure/views are mentioned a lot at first (which turned my mom off of it initially), but it gets better.

==>> Why read this book? BECAUSE THE SEQUELS ARE PHENOMENAL!! <<==

I COULD NOT put the 2ND BOOK DOWN (Street of the 5 Moons), and when I was done I immediately drove to the library for the rest. I even skipped the 3rd book (because the library didn't have it) because I was ABSOLUTELY HOOKED, and the 4th and 5th were so good I didn't get any sleep! I don't feel bad about skipping the 3rd book, but I'm certainly glad I read this 1st one to get established. Don't pass up this series!!!

I am a huge fan of Elizabeth Peter's Amelia Peabody series, so I dove into this book, the first in the Vicky Bliss series, with high expectations. At first, I was put off by Vicky's prickly personality. She's tall, smart, and beautiful and fully aware of the effect she has on men. Vicky is an art historian in friendly competition with friend Tony Lawrence. The two discover evidence of a long-lost Riemenschneider sculpture and fly off to Germany to find it. Once there, they find seances, sleepwalking maidens, secret passages, and many, many suspects who may also be searching for the sculpture. Once I got over Vicky not being like Amelia (and God bless Peters for creating such different and fascinating characters), I couldn't put the book down. Twists and turns with plenty of mayhem make this a wonderful read.

This is the introductory book of the Vicky Bliss series. Dr Bliss is an art historian teaching in a small midwestern college. She has decided never to marry since she has discovered that the only thing that intimidates most men more than a tall woman is a smart tall woman and Vicky is both. Another member of the faculty, Tony, is also tall and smart and quite taken with Vicky. The two stumble across a reference to a long missing art work and are soon off to Germany to track it down, in competition with each other. They find that they are not the only ones seeking this piece. The trail leads to a castle turned hotel complete with a ghost, secret passages and damsel in distress.

This book was written in 1973 and does show its age a bit. If you are looking for the mysterious John Smythe of the later books he does not appear here but we do get the first appearance of Schmidt. While she is not as captivating a Amelia Peabody, Vicky is charming in her own way. The series makes for an enjoyable, light hearted read.

An OK read, but hard to take seriously a heroine so foolish as to repeatedly put herself in danger for little reason. Some excitement, but not really a page turner (little is at stake and not much reason to care about the characters). Hard to see how so many gave it 5 stars when there are so many much better mysteries out there (by this author and others).

The second Vicky Bliss book, this novel introduces us to the suave, debonair art thief, John Smythe. Vicky is intrigued when an amazing jewelry forgery shows up in Munich, where she is working for the National Museum. She decides to travel to Rome to see if she can figure out who is behind this. What she finds is a hotbed of intrigue, forgery and murder.

This is my second favorite of the Vicky Bliss novels (my favorite is the last). It is well written and Vicky is a wonderful, liberated woman.

It's been awhile since I've read a book that I've taken such delight in. Vicky Bliss is a methodical detective much like Mary Russell from the Laurie R. King series. In "Street of the Five Moons", Vicky meets her match in "John Smythe", secretary to a nobleman and art collector, who strongly resembles Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey. His playful evasiveness is a delightful foil for Vicky's determination. Peters describes Germany and Italy like she's a longtime resident and makes clever allusions to more than a few literary classics.
"Street of the Five Moons", like many series' second books, seems stronger than the first installment and has more compelling characters. Vicky's asides to the reader are also a fun device. I look forward to finishing this series and strongly recommend "Street of the Five Moons".

Elizabeth Peters excels once again at fun, suspenseful, comedic mysteries with this series. I could not put down this book. This is a great read!

As soon as I finished this book, I immediately went to the library and read the 4th and 5th in the series (I couldn't even wait to read the 3rd!) and I couldn't put them down either!! You'll stay up late just to finish them and love every minute of it!

It's been a long time since I've picked up a mystery book, and enjoyed it so much! I was up till 3 in the morning reading, I couldn't put it down. I loved the author's style- very brisk and believable, with humor and romance in all the right places. Plenty of adventure and danger too. Basically Vicky goes to Rome to find the creator of fraud jewelry. There she meets her match in "John Smythe". Whose side is he really on? And how is Vicky supposed to solve the mystery with such a distraction? I can't wait to read the other books in the series.

I enjoyed this second in a series mystery novel. There is a new murder to be solved, and there are developments about Sweeney's family ( including the introduction of her father's sister in Newport) and Sweeney's love life. Sweeney is attracted to 2 new men-a detective and an artist-and 2 men from the first Sweeney mystery are still involved in her life- Toby and Ian. Sweeney is still going to graveyards to see tombstones, but the focus is now on mourning jewelry and the "new" (mid-1800's) style cemeteries.
The same structure of beginning with a prologue set many years earlier, this one featuring a now deceased woman, was fine with me because I like patterns in a series of mysteries. Then I realized that, just like the prologue in O'Artful Death and the fourth book in the series, this one was misleading and could only be understood after Sweeney unravels the whodunit. But, it bothers me that Belinda is portrayed weeks after her older husband's death as a young widow who isn't worried about her future. We learn that she had reasons to be greatly concerned.
I like this unusual detective and think I have gained some knowledge of funeral customs from Sarah Stewart Taylor's books. Now, I'm waiting for Amazon to deliver the third book. I heard about these novels from ancestry.com's book club which recommended them as genealogical mysteries.

I am sorry but I did not care for this novel. I think part of the problem is that I do not care for mysteries that much and I do not really like murder mysteries much better. It is much too dark what with all the suicide and drinking and I thought that much was left unsaid. For one thing, Sweeney alludes to herself as a drinker when Jack asks to begin a relationship with her. I did not really get that she was that much of a drinker in the novel so that threw me. I needed a better explanation for her referring to herself as a drinker. Also I do not like suicides - Sweeney's father and Quinn's wife. The suicides and the characters in the book are just too serious for me. Also I am still trying to determine how Brad has Charles Putnam's DNA when Belinda had an illegitimate child. There was just not enough rationale or answers for me and it was just too dark.

The second novel in the Sweeney St. George series provides a very compelling mystery and continues to provide insights into the background of Sweeney - an atypical mystery lead. It also introduces a new character - detective Tim Quinn. He is a great addition to the series with a lot of "issues" to explore in future novels. A wonderful read.

It is SO nice (and alas, so rare) to find a "new" mystery author to follow! Taylor's books combine all the ingredients: a strong, likeable, three-dimensional heroine; plots that keep the pages turning; a sense of place and setting; and (an added bonus) fascinating information topics I'd never considered studying.

Consider this one of my rare raves.

Red-haired Sweeney St. George (a great name!) teaches a class on mourning objects at an unnamed Boston area university. One of her graduate seminar students is murdered and pieces of mourning jewelry are found on his person. Are these objects clues to the killer?

Sweeney gets invited to help the police, including a complex officer Quinn with troubles of his own. We get glimpses of Sweeney's own troubled past, which helps her understand the family of the dead man. She digs into historical records and gets tempted by a young man who's very much alive.

My only quibble is the author's references to Sweeney's college teaching career. We get hints that Sweeney's friend helped her get what amounts to an insecure, adjunct teaching position. But even with a friend pulling strings, art history positions are scarce, especially if a professor specializes in arcane areas.

And as a former professor myself, I would urge Sweeney to create more distance between herself and her students. She can't sit on the floor of her office with a male graduate student --- not in the 21st century. She can't intrude on their private lives. And we get only a hint of Sweeney's teaching load, which probably included a section or two of Art History 101 or at the very least, Introduction to American Art.

Minor points. I loved this book. I wasn't a bit tempted to peek ahead and I was sorry to see the end.

Write fast, Ms. Taylor! We need a long series here.

For me the chief charm of Sarah Stewart Taylor's Sweeney St. George is not as an amateur sleuth but as a college art professor with a specialty in cemetery statuary, graveyard iconography, and mourning rituals. Given a choice between being in the room when she reveals the identity of the murderer or taking her Mourning Object seminar, or even Looking at Culture: Art and Social History, sign me up for the latter. I do not have anything close to Taylor's expertise on such things, but I certainly have the interest. So when Sweeney starts explaining the origin of mourning jewelry as it relates to the death of both Queen Victoria's mother and husband as well as the American Civil War I am just fascinated.

However, "Mansions of the Dead" is a murder mystery and not a seminar paper, although the two are linked. Because of her expertise on mourning jewelry Sweeney is asked by the Boston police to look at some pieces found on a dead body. Sweeney obliges but is rocked when she learns that the victim was Brad Putnam, one the students in her seminar. That not only means that this time it is personal, but also that it is political, because Brad is one of "the" Putnams, a Kennedy-like clan in terms of not only their wealth and connections, but also in the way that personal tragedy has touched their family.

The elements that we enjoyed in "O' Artful Death" are once again all present in Taylor's second novel. Sweeney's expertise gives her insights into a murder investigation that leads to an entirely different path of evidence and reasoning than what is being pursued by the police. She has questions, a lot of questions, and this habit of continuing to question the answers she gets to the original questions. There is always a paragraph in one of these novels where Sweeney asks herself a half-dozen questions in a row, which I like, because it means she is getting serious. There is also the vacuum of Sweeney's love life, as she tries to move towards filing the vacuum in her life left by Colm's death, and finds herself drawn to someone who intrigues her but has the downside of being a suspect in the murder at hand.

What is different is that Taylor has made a concerted effort to flesh out the rest of the characters in the story. Everybody in the Putnam clan has a chapter or two in which we get to find out what they are up to away from Sweeney's investigation, and the same applies to some of Sweeney's students and Detective Timothy Quinn, whose home situation is not really germane to this mystery but which may (or may not) portend something down the road for our heroine, assuming that future adventures take place in the greater Boston area and not in other parts of New England (although a friend on the police will certainly not hurt). Some of this is character development and part of it is clues, which means red herrings are involved as well, but clearly Taylor is trying to expand the scope of her storytelling.

Again, "Mansions of the Dead" is not one of those mysteries where you have a chance of figuring out things before the heroine. Taylor lays out all of the clues before you and so when Sweeney makes all of the pieces fit you will know exactly what she is talking about. We know from the start that the mourning jewelry figures in Brad's death, so the big question is "how?" Just keep in mind that the way Taylor writes a mystery is like those logic puzzles you did back in school, where you had to find out who lives in the green house and what the Italian drinks: evidence that eliminates possibilities is as important as evidence that points an incriminating finger. You have to remember that Sweeney St. George is a neophyte when it comes to being an amateur sleuth and part of her charm is that she has not really realized she is a character in a series of mystery novels.

This book was fabulous. Incredibly well written and intriguing character profile. For anyone familiar with university life, you will laugh a lot at the situations, and for those who are unfamiliar, you will be introduced to the backside of university politics.

This is a memorable book, incredibly funny with serious underlying themes related to marriage, family, self esteem and struggles with inner demons. Douglas uses language very creatively. I loved the book and would highly recommend it.

A good beach read for those who can't stomach mass-market paperback pap. This is an often funny, sometimes fiercely sad, tale of the fairly likeable Daniel Ben Wellington who cannot seem to make the correct move in almost anything he undertakes. It speaks to anyone who has been mildly aware of how "chance" tends to rule our lives to a greater degree than most self-help poseurs acknowledge.

I thought "The Catastrophist" might be another first novel by an academic. I gave it a chance, and by the second page, I was "hooked". The main character reads like a train wreck with a colorfully described internal life that captures a self-depreciating good humor. Professor Douglas offers a take on modern culture that mixes insight with derailment, then adds dry wit with a bit of animalistic vitality thrown in.

The Catastrophist's turn of phrase is laugh-out-loud funny.

P. 33 "Gradually I lost the ability to distinguish between my original dread and my dread of my dread. My anxiety reflected back on itself, like an object trapped between two mirrors."

The female characters, the supporting male characters, the incidents, locations and dialogue are all very ...varied. The supporting characters remain unique unto themselves. They could be the Cheers/Seinfield casts that carry on to spawn their own shows and develop their characters (Frazier, Lilith, Julia Dreyfus, Kramer, etc.) long after Cheers/Seinfield has vanished.

A disappointing quality of novel rests in Daniel Wellington's state of non-maturation. He doesn't seem to learn any life lessons or mature. He just keeps on keeping on, and gets away with it, at least through page 274.

Not to spoil the ending...the other shoe doesn't drop...there is no ending. The author could easily pick up with the same character in "The Catastrophist: Part Deux", or page 275. The book didn't take a nosedive, it just glides.

"The Catastrophist" was amusing; it was entertaining. However, the potentially deep material stayed superficial. I'd hazard a guess that Part Deux would land the reader at a destination, hitting pay dirt.

At the onset, I gave ""The Catastrophist" five stars. By mid-book I had descended to four stars, and I concluded with generous three stars by the non-end. I'd round it off to a nice four stars. Professor Douglas may or may not be on to something...too soon to tell.

A catastrophic reaction is defined as the disorganized behavior that is the response to a severe shock or threatening situation with which the person cannot cope. In Lawrence Douglas' "Catastrophist," the protagonist, Daniel Wellington, experiences a series of subtle catastrophic-type reactions to everyday life stressors (family, career, travel etc.). It is not entirely clear why Daniel is having these reactions. The author suggests that these may be part of the protagonist's generalized anxiety. The reactions are not violent displays of emotional turmoil such as predicting the end of the world, seeing unrealistic danger or doom in a situation or a total psychiatric breakdown. Rather, these catastrophic reactions are introspective and eat away at Daniel until they ooze out in the form of self-destructive behavior that is never consummated but yet harmful. Most of this behavior is in the form of flirtations that lead nowhere until one day he foolishly sends a sexually explicit e-mail to a former student and gets in trouble at work for possible sexual harassment. Another such "ooze" is Daniel's careless lies to the press and public about being a child of a Holocaust survivor. He does this at the pinnacle of his career in Berlin after making an important speech and being named to a prestigious Holocaust Memorial Board of Directors. He is eventually found out and forced to resign. The worst of these episodes is falsely leading his wife to believe that he was having affairs. In each of these three areas, he reacts to his fear of the worst (professional failure, sexual harassment charges and jealousy over his wife) by a disorganized, passive-aggressive and self-destructive behavior that paradoxically causes the worst to happen where it would not have been otherwise. Funny and tragic, the novel explores our fear of failure and loss and how our responses to these fears, if dysfunctional, can actually bring them into being. The author's technique is subtle, plot patiently developed and main characters realistic. This is also a real syndrome and the story is plausible and sound, full of humor and pathos.

I love this book in the serious the very best, It is faster-paced and more drama and mystery than some of the others. The usual characters in this book are on the top of their game and I have enjoyed this book the best! I am in the middle of the last book....Laughter of the Dead Kings....which is good as well.

I really enjoyed this book - I'm a HUGE Elizabeth Peters fan and enjoy all the Amelia Peabody books and this is my first foray into the Vicky Bliss Mysteries. Fun enjoyable read. Thanks Elizabeth.

The third Vicky Bliss story, this novel sends Vicky to Sweden to find out what John is up to now. When she gets a call from "Cousin Gus", she knows that she must keep this man from being swindled. What she ends up in is a web of intrigue that John was unaware of.

This novel continues the developing relationship between Vicky and John, a criminal with a heart of gold. Vicky is, as always, independent and resourceful. The book is a fun read!

I am so glad that I went back to read this earlier Elizabeth Peters series. It is quite different in many aspects to the Peabody series but still features a strong central female character, some romance thrown into the mystery, and many red herrings and rather arcane information.

In this third entry of the series, Vicky Bliss receives an anonymous plane ticket and hotel reservation to Stockholm. She knows that the invite is from Sir John Smythe, introduced in the last book and her somewhat love interest. She goes to Stockholm, discovers what the mystery involves, is led to an island in the north of Sweden to follow up on some leads and most of the action takes place there. The mystery is interesting, the clues are available to the reader, there are plenty of red herrings to make it fun, and the ending is very satisfactory.

I guess there are only a couple of more in this series. I wonder if Ms. Peters will ever write any more or will stick with just the Peabody books?

Vicky Bliss, an art historian now working at a Munich museum, is a bit frustrated with the dull, rainy late spring Munich weather. Life is a bit boring after some of her recent adventures but that changes when she opens a package containing a one-way ticket (coach) to Sweden, a two word Latin message and a single red rose. This has to be the work of the mysterious John Smythe so naturally Vicky is soon on her way to Stockholm. Others seem to be interested in her travel plans as well and Vicky quickly finds herself again involved in international intrigues of amazing proportions.

As with the rest of this series there are complicated intrigues, amazing conicidences, exciting chases and a cliff hanging ending all linked by Vicky wry observations on life and love.

Santlofer does it again, with this chilling third instalment to his Death Artist series. In The Killing Art, protagonist Kate McKinnon must re-invent herself in the glamorous art world of New York City. But just as she begins to take comfort in her new existence, she is drawn back to her past as an NYPD Detective and finds herself on the trail of a serial killer.

The thing that I find most fascinating and satisfying about Santlofer's work is the way he incorporates his inside knowledge of the art world into every page. His use of his own paintings as clues is both unique and brilliantly enticing. Before embarking on his career as an author, Santlofer was already a well-known painter. His symbiotic merging of the two art forms creates a product that is addictive to say the least.
Donna Carrick www.donnacarrick.com

The author of Color Blind and The Death Artist has written another great thriller featuring cop-turned-art historian Kate McKinnon.

Kate is recovering from the death of her husband Richard, re-shaping her life from the life of luxury they shared. She is working on a TV show and a book on the New York School of artists Pollack, de Kooning, Kline and Gorky. Their paintings are being slashed--in a museum, a law office, and in homes.

One of her fiends has a Franz Kline that is slashed in his home, and is killed when he surprises the vandal. Then the murders begin. Gabrielle Hoffman, granddaughter of an artist and also a collector; the artist Beatrice Larsen, a collector, a museum curator.... Kate is asked to help the art squad, and later the FBI enter the picture to coordinate the investigations in different jurisdictions. An FBI-planted story in the press about stolen art works being fakes leads to the deaths of three more people and stalls the investigation--as they assume one of them was the slasher.

The author has created some fascinating paintings that are the clues in the case, and are reproduced here. His thorough research is evident as is his talent for meshing historic characters with fictional artists.

Armchair Interviews says: A thriller that would really appeal to art lovers.

History and fiction collide with deadly consequences in the third Kate McKinnon novel -- a story of bitter revenge, where the past invades the present and a decades-old secret proves fatal

Kate McKinnon has lived many lives, from Queens cop to Manhattan socialite, television art historian, and the woman who helped the NYPD capture the Death Artist and the Color Blind killer. But that's the past. Now, devastated by the death of her husband, Kate is attempting to quietly rebuild her life as a single woman. Gone are the Park Avenue penthouse and designer clothes. Now it's a funky Chelsea loft, downtown fashion, and even a hip new haircut as Kate plunges back into her work -- writing a book about America's most celebrated artistic era, the New York School of the 1940s and '50s, a circle that included Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Mark Rothko.

But when a lunatic starts slashing the very paintings she is writing about -- along with their owners -- Kate is once again tapped by the NYPD. As she deciphers the evidence -- cryptic images that reveal both the paintings and the people who will be the next targets -- Kate is drawn into a world where art and art history provide lethal clues.

The Killing Art is Jonathan Santlofer's most gripping and chilling story yet, but that isn't the only reason the novel is remarkable. The author, who is also an acclaimed artist, has created works of art just for the book that tantalize and challenge readers by using well-known symbols in innovative ways, allowing them to decode the clues along with Kate. A masterwork of both suspense fiction and art, The Killing Art will impress both thriller readers and art fans as the plot twists and turns toward a shocking climax.

Jonathan Santlofer's third Kate McKinnon novel repeats the themes of his first two offerings: violence that erupts in the art world and/or around priceless works of art, murders of artists, curators, art collectors, and the occasional "collateral victim."

Kate is a former Queens cop who married "up," quit her day job, and became a society matron, a philanthropist, host of a TV show on PBS, and now she is writing a book. In her last outing her husband is brutally murdered, and she insists she work as a consultant on the case. She brings to her colleagues a doctorate in Art History, thus giving the police (and readers) short courses on great artists and their work. To solve this crime, a working knowledge of the symbolism behind each painting and an understanding of the artist who created it are helpful. In THE KILLING ART, "original artwork by the author is included." This is an interesting device that challenges readers to help discover the clues and make the connections.

Kate is a mover and shaker who uses her influence and money to help children who have potential that would die if not for the special opportunity she affords them. "Talk about timing. Just after her third miscarriage, tangled in the red tape of adoption, and here they were --- dozens of kids who needed her help. Kate had seen what the program could do --- offering a handful of kids special attention, less crowded classrooms, encouragement, and preparation for college, if they wanted to go."

The plot centers on a killer who vandalizes and slashes great works of art as his signature. His plans go wrong in his second outing and he is caught; the owner of that artwork is his first kill. He enjoys it --- the power, the feeling of the knife entering the man --- and decides to add killing to his M.O. He escalates into a sociopath/psychopath committing increasingly ghoulish murders.

In THE KILLING ART Kate once again inserts herself into the investigation of the series of diabolical killings that are connected to the slashed paintings. The spouse of one of her dear friends is murdered when he catches the killer in the act of destroying a painting that hangs in his home. Kate is determined not to let his or the deaths of the other victims go unsolved. The perp's M.O. makes for an interesting twist. S/he sends a warning, via a painting that incorporates the last victim's ruined canvas, and hints at who the next target is. Since Kate is writing a book about the New York School of artists and their inner circle known as the "irascibles," she definitely is an asset to what appears to be a vendetta against their work.

"To the artists of the New York School painting was their life, their soul, their raison d'etre. For them the 1930s and '40s were defined by cold-water flats, hard work, heavy drinking; painters hanging out in bars and coffee shops, arguing about the latest trends and ideas --- creation over completion, painting as an event --- but most of all, it was a time of intense friendship and camaraderie."

At least that is how the legends and myths about this group offer up their story. The in-crowd included such luminaries as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko and Lee Krasner.

Kate was and is a very good cop. Her art expertise is stellar and her eye is as sharp as her gut instincts when it comes to solving crimes. She works with the NYPD and the FBI in their efforts to catch a killer. She always has been a strikingly beautiful woman who takes her looks for granted and really never uses them to get what she wants. She maintains her cool and keeps a certain amount of distance between herself and the ugly side of life she is forced to deal with. She, like the painters, is reinventing herself as she moves through the grief that is always with her. She bought a loft, had one of her protégés move in with a baby, and has created a small family.

In the meantime, each owner of each painting that is destroyed gets a small painting in an envelope that represents elements of the New York School painters' work. Kate is the one who deduces that these are the killer's calling card, and he is taunting everyone by hinting at which will be his next slashed painting and who will be the dead owner. The creepiest threads in the novel are the glimpses readers get into the mind of the murderer. Those interior monologues are chilling, yet readers will find themselves spellbound as the monster reveals bit by bit who he is and why he kills.

Jonathan Santlofer has that "special something" that allows him to wander into dark places and report what he finds, yet he always has control of the plot. The regulars are becoming more and more believable as each book brings them back. This series could turn into a really hot item as readers become more familiar with this writer.


--- Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum

I can't give this 5 stars because of some flaws in the writing, but the plot was so good and was enhanced by illustrations done by the author, who is also a painter, that I really enjoyed reading this for the story alone. The author also puts in a lot of information about a group of American 20th century painters known as the New York School, probably the best known is Willem de Kooning. His knowledge and research in this area was excellent and helped shape the story as well as get the reader interested in the paintings. The plot involves someone who is slashing famous paintings to ribbons (and people as well) and before each destruction/killing sends a composite painting that contains a clue as to where they will strike next. The author draws these composite pictures and puts them throughout the book, so that the reader can follow exactly what is going on. I think the author shows promise as a mystery writer, but he is weak in areas other than plot, which accounts for the 4 stars. The characters are not well developed and many are almost stereotypes (and that includes racial, ethnic, gender and political). They just don't come off as real people. In addition, the dialogue is pretty awful. You dont hear people actually talking the way a lot of these characters talk, and if you heard it on late night TV, you'd be grabbing the remote. He should pay more attention when he's outside his own field. For example, the psychiatrist almost made me think I needed to call one. In about five pages, he diagnoses the killer as being 1) a psychopath, and 2) paranoid schizophrenic, and 3) obsessive-compulsive. All three in one? The NYPD can't find this person? He must be wearing a sign the size of a bus. A lot of the conversation had me cringing. BUT--the story was just so good and so well plotted that I was willing to overlook things I ordinarily wouldn't. For the art and the art history alone, it's worth reading, and I did not guess who did it until the very end. Keep on going, Mr. Santlofer.

Although the book itself is enjoyable, the mystery part of the story is much weaker in this book. Maybe it's because I'm not a woman, but SST seems to spend an inordinate amount of time describing the style and type of hair and haircuts of the characters. But anyway, there are far too many 'red herrings' in this story to make it slide smoothly along. And some of the relationships among the characters is either too superficial or trite.

As to Sweeney's drinking and love life, it's so transparent and telegraphed as if to say, expect this in the next chapter or next book. The solving of the 'crimes' itself are so easy that they're almost superfluous to the book. Especially unnecessary is the second crime side story that doesn't seem to add anything to the series except to flesh out the book. There is little atmosphere in the story, as the museum is almost as sterile as a hospital.

It may sound picky, but at one point, one of the detectives is able to track down a character whose name is "Jason" by calling all of the colleges in the Boston area. DUH! There are over one hundred colleges in the immediate vicinity and even though he is a chemistry major, how many Jasons are out there. Can you imagine calling up MIT, Northeastern and BU (which have over 100,000 students together) and finding only ONE student majoring in chemistry named Jason? How about Bob or John or Basil?

Hopefully the next book will be a little more realistic. But somehow I have a feeling it will deal with Sweeney's alcoholism, quel suprise!

Love this book for several reasons:

a. Intelligent characters
b. Characters staying in their assigned roles - this book proved you can have a central character who doesn't have the need to solve the case themselves and at the same time prove the police are idiots - refreshing
c. Characters with realistic flaws - sorry no hints you'll have to find out on your own (However, there was one character I wanted to kick in the butt)
d. It doesn't drag you down with the facts - what facts it does provide add to the story without boring the reader
e. Well written - smooth flowing - very fast read - realistic dialogue
f. The author throws in little things that tickles the curiosity of the reader - what is the character up to and why

Sarah Stewart Taylor has written her fourth Sweeney St. George mystery and each is superb, each better than the last. Still as Death keeps the reader glued because of the skill of writing, the excellence portrayed in each character and the swiftness of plot development. An easy read, an enjoyable few hours of being ensnared by the entertainment of the book.

Adding the wealth of knowledge of antiquities and funerary art enriches the experience. Placing the setting at a museum with characters participating in the intricate art of displaying objects, is a brilliant premise for the writer as well as the reader. The underlying sexual tension between the main character, Sweeney, her "boyfriend", for lack of a better description, and the toe-in-the-dirt shy detective is titillating and keeps the reader wanting more.

Start with O' Artful Death, move to Mansions of the Dead, then Judgment of the Grave before reading this wonderful book to enjoy the entire development of a lovable character, Sweeney St. George. We can only hope there is more in the future.

Sarah Stewart Taylor continues to enthrall her readers with the life and times of Sweeney St. George. Though there are some instances of predictablity that run through the pages, Stewart Taylor spins a tale of murder, history, mystery, and, yes, a little bit of a love story which is the life of Sweeney St. George.

My excitement over learning that "Still as Death," the fourth Sweeney St. George Mystery was available in paperback was tempered by the realization that Sarah Stewart Taylor's novel had been published in hardback last year. I read the first three novels in a relatively short period of time because I had received an offer to review the third book, "Judgment of the Grave," and initially turned it down because I do not like to jump into a series after it has started (imagine starting "The Lord of the Rings" with "The Return of the King," or the mystery series of your choice with the third volume rather than starting at the beginning). I then took advantage of a counteroffer to be sent all three books and now have a reason besides the Demon Barber of Fleet Street to run around chanting "Sweeney, Sweeney, Sweeney." A lot of books showed up this month from authors that my wife and I both read, and I have to say that showing "Still as Death" had arrived was the only one that made my wife's face light up (but I got to read it first).

This fourth outing finds our professorial heroine preparing an exhibition entitled: "Still as Death: The Art of the End of Life" at the Hapner Museum of Art in Boston. However the book begins with a prologue set in 1979, when the museum was the target of a daring robbery. At the opening of the exhibit somebody ends up dead and the game is afoot and we discover that lots of people there have something to be guilty about.
One of the interesting things about this series is how Taylor avoids having Sweeney solve these murders all by herself. When you are an expert on funereal art there are not going to be a lot of murder mysteries that are on point, and in the real world murders are solved by professionals and not amateurs. In this series that would be Detective Tim Quinn, who is assigned the case and does not know whether he is bothered more by being around Sweeney again or having to deal with a new partner.

In addition to the mysteries regarding the missing Egyptian funeral collar, the murder in the museum, and the apparent suicide of grad student Karen Phillips a quarter-century earlier, the other burning question in "Still as Death" is whether Sweeney is going to figure out her love life. She is living with Ian, who needs to more back to London, not just for his work but also because he wants to be closer to his daughter. Ian wants Sweeney to move with him to England, whether they would be plenty of funeral art for her to check out. Sweeney's apartment building is about to be sold so it looks like it is time for a change, but complicating the issue is Quinn. Sweeney's investigations and the murder at the museum bring Sweeney and Quinn together again, and besides the two of them the only ones who do not see the spark between the pair are the cat Sweeney has inherited and the corpse.

I have to admit that I would have liked to have seen more of Sweeney as an art scholar this around, especially since the title for this book comes from the exhibit on her specialty, "the art of death," for the university museum. The opening of the museum is interrupted by a murder and you can hardly say her attempt to give Quinn an after hour tour goes any better. I find the funeral art stuff in these books to be totally fascinating and would not mind reading some of Sweeney's scholarly work if Taylor ever wants to publish it.. The resolution of the love triangle I found to be unsatisfying, but I have to reserve final judgment on that score because I have my suspicions as to what Taylor is setting up for the next installment. What is important is that I am already anxious for the nest Sweeney St. George Mystery and firmly convinced that it will have something to do with El Dia de los Muertos. The upside to having missed reading "Still as Death" for thirteen months until it came out in paperback is tempered by the mathematical certainty that I now have less time to wait to read that next one. In hardback this time, I promise.

John Richardson's book-The Sorcerer's Apprentice-reveals fascinating details and anecdotes on Picasso and other artists he met through Douglas Cooper, his long time lover.Those chapters are well written, deep, interesting and amusing.The rest of the book is less amusing:Richardson draws a mercyless portrait of Douglas Cooper, which might have served his author as a cathartic exercise, but adds nothing to the reader's knowledge.

john richardson gives us snippets of a fascinating period intertwining the lives of influential artists and personas. i only wish the book was longer and more descriptive of braque,guttoso and miro. if you collect or enjoy the cubists and their relatives,you will enjoy this book

By Picasso's most distinguished biographer, this memoir of life in Provence in the 1950s with art collector Douglas Cooper mesmerizes with its cast of quirky characters. The inside glimpses of Picasso at work and play are the book's highlight, but one can't underrate other protraits of the arts intelligentsia of the time. Many great candid photos enhance the superbly written text. Why did Richardson stay with Cooper for more than a decade if Cooper, the world's first huge cubist collector, was as horrid a person as portrayed? That's unanswered, and Cooper is long dead and unable to defend himself. Both men, not quite closeted gays in the '40s and '50s, were esteemed companions for some of the era's greatest creatives, so one must temper this acidic portrait with a bit of doubt. Well worth reading even if you haven't looked into the author's Picasso bio, still in progress.

Richardson's fine survey of Douglas Cooper, who assembled the world's most important private cubist collection, provides an excellent consideration of both the man and his involvement in the arts and Richardson's personal involvement with Cooper's works. Chapters offer new views of Picasso based on Richardson's friendship with the artist, plus many other unusual insights on artists and works of the times. Highly recommended.

John Richardson has set aside his scholarly masterpiece (A Life of Picasso: Volumes I & II completed, Volumes III & IV eagerly awaited)to produce something bubbly and light; it is not soda-pop, though, but vintage champagne. Far different from the careful and meticulous research of his Picasso oeuvre, The Sorcerer's Apprentice is a welcome intermission and a clearing of the palate.

Richardson writes about himself and his friends, and especially about his love affair with Douglas Cooper ("The Sorcerer" of the title), art collector, critic and expert on cubism from whom Richardson learned a great deal, both good and bad.The book illuminates not only the relationship between the older, impossible, Cooper and his young apprentice, but also back lights aspects of Picasso, Braque, Lèger and Juan Gris as they are reflected in the tumultuous lives of that odd couple.

The author is an inveterate gossip, as good biographers should be. He likes to tell the little details that deflate or humanize others. He does not have the malice of Capote (although sometimes he comes close), and he is obviously too amiable and forgiving to twist the knife or seek idle revenge.

One cannot be sure about the motives that led to putting out this light froth between the serious stuff; I am glad it is out there, though, and glad I read it. Being taken into Mr. Richardson's confidence and getting to know him will make the enjoyment of his next Picasso volumes all the more intense.

This is a stream of consciousness book and not particularly easy reading, but the experiences and stories and recounting of history contained in it is priceless. Studs laments how easily seminal people are forgotten and he has made it his business to let the forgotten ones know that he remembers them and knows of their importance in our country's story.

Anyone who reads this book will be richer for doing so and will be better able to tackle the current election and issues we face.

Fans of Studs Terkel will love this book. His radio voice leaps off the page: the same rhythms, the same w ay of telling a story. Readers who don't know Studs will be treated to an account of the twentieth century that is at once highly personal and local and at the same time universal in its subject matter. Highly recommended!

For a storyteller, he has a lousy ear. His writing is an awkward stream of self-conscious, self-indulgent non-sequiturs. I found it to be unreadable schtick. He tries to be cute, to dress up the mundane, but it flops. He doesn't earn the reader's attention. He assumes he has it no matter what, I suppose, probably due to a certain conceit. If you look at E.B. White's memoir essays, such as "The Years of Wonder," by comparison, you see a style Terkel would have done well to emulate. White is light years ahead of Terkel as a writer, though.

Studs is a national treasure. That he's a great listener anyone who is familiar with his "Working," "Hard Times," "Race," etc. already knows. His story telling skills haven't diminished a bit as he approaches the century mark. The only thing that I found disappointing was that it ended so soon. I felt like I was paying a visit to a great friend & I had to leave too early. Still, any time spent with Studs is a treat.

His observations, especially in some of the later chapters "And nobody laughed" and "Einstein and the rest of us" remind us that the madness that we're currently experiencing has roots that are both recent and back over half a century. His observations also, to the annoyance of many, refuse to be clouded by the hype from all quarters that we're constantly bombarded with. That Ronald Reagan and his administration's devastating policies still haven't been discovered by the very citizens whose lives have been (adversely) effected the most ("What's the matter with Kansas"), as we currently have presidential candidates falling all over themselves to "out Reagan" each other, don't cease to amaze. The selective amnesia that infests our society doesn't just border on the surreal, but has crossed the line with plenty to spare.

If you frequently find yourself having that uneasy feeling as if you were stuck in a dreamscape conjured up by Salvador Dali during a fit of madness, or perhaps find yourself carrying one of those Bush Countdown Clocks around to remind yourself that maybe there will be a beginning to an end one day, then a strong dose of Studs might offer hope that reality might still exist.

I enjoyed the book. It brought back memories of times past, I love Chicago. While not as liberal as Studs, I appreciate his passion, kindness and thoughtfullness for those less fortunate. Studs has always been fun and so interesting. I always feel enriched, after reading his books.

Gorgeous restraint and clairivoyant insight reside at the center of David Huddle's second (and finest) novel. How he is able to imagine and weave together the lives of an aging art history professor at the end of her marriage and a young girl entangled in a charged mental dance with a dying painter (La Tour) is nothing short of mesmerizing. I read this book in one sitting and sat stunned at the end.

As I was halfway through this book, I had a couple of thoughts.

One was that it falls squarely into one of my favorite categories (what a friend of mine jokingly calls "academics in love" novels.)

Another was that the book was going to be too slight to really be worth all the craftsmanship. On this thought, I turned out to have been very wrong.

I am usually the first person to argue that a book cannot be redeemed in its ending. I dislike it very much when an author pulls some kind of spectacular deus ex machina out at the conclusion and expects the reader to extend that resolution backwards. The funny thing is that this is what Huddle does, and for a change I found that it really worked.

The book begins as a beautifully written little story about a dry and isolated art history professor in a failing marriage who daydreams a story about George La Tour (a 17th century writer) instead of interacting with her painful life. The narrative weaves between her perspective, the perspective of her husband, and the perspective of a La Tour in his last years.

It is really kind of wonderful how without me noticing it, Huddle brings all the threads together to be about something much bigger and more important than self-involvement. The book ends up being about loss and acceptance and the way we understand other people and the way it treats the subject is even stronger because of the understated way it plays its hand.

La Tour is not perfect. I could not really accept the 17th century narrative, even given the context of it being Suzanne's fantasy. Suzanne is also difficult to like, at least for much of the book. A friend of mine who read it found it very difficult to get past the nature of her character to enjoy the book.

Still, a good way to start off the New Year's reading. Recommended for fans of strong literary criticism. Bonus for armchair art critics.

I enjoyed this book very much but often felt like i was reading 2 novels. I failed to see how the 2 settings and stories, although told at a parrallel, intertwined or related. I enjoyed the Vivienne/La Tour story much more than the other and found it annoying to have read both. I was hoping the book was more in the line of Chevalier's Pearl Earring - but it was not. I am left feeling like, "ok, so....." with emptiness... i did not like the ending....

LA TOUR DREAMS OF THE WOLF GIRL is my first exposure to the work of David Huddle - and he's a very talented craftsman. The transitions between present-day Vermont (and Appalachia) and 17th century France are seamless - in the hands of a less competent writer they might easily have been clumsy and disruptive to the narrative. Huddle has a discerning eye when it comes to the human psyche and its accompanying emotional baggage, and he lays out his observations for the reader in several ways - direct, subtly oblique, and various `grey areas' in between the two.

We see La Tour through the eyes of a professor of art history at the University of Vermont, Suzanne Nelson. She is writing a dissertation on the artist, and she focuses her attention - and her imagination - on a particular painting, the last one of LaTour's life. He has chosen as his model a village girl, the daughter of the local shoemaker. We see him strut into the village with his retinue of dogs, knowing full well how the scene will play itself out before him. He will make his offer to the shoemaker, who will at first refuse to allow his daughter to pose in the nude for the artist (despite his advanced age and the unlikelihood of anything improper occurring), then the two will haggle over price and social considerations - and in the end, the deal will be made, and the girl will come to his villa to pose for him. LaTour is assured that everything will happen as he imagines it - and to a point, events unfold as he predicts. It is when the girl arrives for her first sitting, and he finds that she is both more intelligent and self-assured than he could have dreamed, that he discovers that he will indeed paint her - his advanced age and his arthritic pains had convinced him that he was merely luring her into his studio to pose for his eyes. When she disrobes for the first time before him, and he sees that she is marked on her back with a thatch of wolf-like hair, stretching from near her shoulder blade to her spine, he is transfixed - and he is further moved to discover that she knows nothing about this unique trait.

As Vivienne continues to make visits to LaTour's studio, over the course of a few months, the painting progresses. LaTour saves the addition of the wolf-patch until the last, knowing that as soon as she sees it, she will feel violated and betrayed - both by the artist and her parents. Over the course of this time, she has come to be more comfortable in the artist's presence - he has drawn her out into conversations by posing questions to her about her daily life in the village, and she has been surprised to find herself eager to talk to him. She also is amazed to realize, toward the completion of the painting, that she has been in effect lying to LaTour - that the stories she has told have been embellishments of reality, sometimes complete inventions. He has taught he to lie by giving her to opportunity to do so with impunity.

All of this is of course a product of the imaginings of Professor Nelson - as she works on her dissertation, she allows herself to be carried away into LaTour's life and times, constructing out of the facts she knows a more complete picture of a human being, all the way down to his thoughts and motives. All of this is colored by the events of her own life. Her marriage of twelve years is slowly disintegrating - eroded by time and by inattentiveness (on the part of both herself and her husband). The novel follows them from early in their lives, before they meet - the reader is given invaluable glimpses into their pasts and upbringings, allowing the forces that have formed them to be visible. They are drawn together as inexorably as they fall apart.

Unlike many contrived plots wherein spitefulness and meanness - both unfortunately common human traits - play a large part in the path lives take, there is no hard-spirited ugliness at play here. This is simply a story of lives that come together and fall apart. There is a common thread passing through the fabric of all of these characters' lives, however - LaTour and Vivienne included - they are all running from something. Not all of them are conscious of it, but it's there. Suzanne and Jack are both running from the smothering influence of their parents - his are extremely wealthy, hers are from a rural area in the Appalachians. Elly, Suzanne's acquaintance who takes Jack as a lover, is running both from and to herself - streaming away from the life she has had and toward the life she imagines she wants, all of the time actually running away from who she really is. LaTour is running desperately from death - and Vivienne is running (at least in her dreams) from the life she leads in the rural French countryside. Everybody wants something they don't think they have - and a few of them actually come to discover that they had more than they realized all along.

It is these voyages of self-discovery and longing that make this book so appealing - and the fact that Huddle has combined all of these stories into a valid whole makes this an entertaining, compelling read.

Gorgeous restraint and clairivoyant insight reside at the center of David Huddle's second (and finest) novel. How he is able to imagine and weave together the lives of an aging art history professor at the end of her marriage and a young girl entangled in a charged mental dance with a dying painter (La Tour) is nothing short of mesmerizing. I read this book in one sitting and sat stunned at the end.