Set in the gossipy, rumor-ridden art world, this thoroughly enjoyable mystery begins with the discovery of a fake Van Eyck and a real Rubens in the Seattle warehouse of an importer of schlock art sold en masse to hotels. Identifying the works almost instantly is ironic, self-deprecating narrator Chris Norgren, first met in Deceptive Clarity. Chris, a curator at the Seattle Art Museum, is swept up in the dangerous hunt for thieves, perhaps mafiosi, who stole the Rubens and other works in three almost simultaneous hauls--worth $100 million--in Bologna 22 months earlier. Chris may be an expert on craquelure , or crackling in paint, but he's none too acute on human beings, totally misjudging a gaggle of suspects and the head of the carabinieri's art theft unit, the narrow-shouldered Antuoni, who seems to him to be simply an officious file clerk. The reader dines well with Chris, enjoying steamed clams and white wine on the Seattle waterfront, and cuschninetti di vitello, veal scallops stuffed with prosciutto and cheese, in a grand Bolognese restaurant. We also fly with him to Sicily (after a delay caused by the finding of a bomb in his luggage) and to Amsterdam. This fresh, funny and well-informed book should win new fans for Elkins, whose Old Bones earned an Edgar for best novel in 1988. Detective Book Club selection.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Another adventure for curator Chris Norgren, specialist in Renaissance and Baroque at the Seattle Arts Museum (Deceptive Clarity, 1987). Here, Chris is soon to leave for Bologna to finalize preparations for a show in Seattle called Northerners In Italy. The Bolognese museum and Clara Gozzi, a private collector, are lending works to be shipped by the well-established company of the Salvatorelli brothers. Both the museum and Clara had been victims of a major theft two years earlier, in the course of which a watchman was killed. Now, just before Chris's departure, Clara's stolen Rubens has turned up, in a Salvatorelli shipment to Mike Blusher, importer of objets d'art. Chris, arriving in Bologna, meets old friends, a not so old girlfriend, and new enemies. He also finds himself in the middle of a complex train of scams and double-crosses that puts his life at risk, but eventually he'll reclaim the lost masterpieces. Chris is cool and likable, the Italians exuberant and wily, the art history lucid but restrained, and the plot good-naturedly confusing but fun all the way. Elkins at his best. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
