- Paperback: 480 pages
- Publisher: Abacus; New Tra edition (Jun 2 2005)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0349118833
- ISBN-13: 978-0349118833
- Product Dimensions: 3.2 x 12.7 x 19.7 cm
- Shipping Weight: 340 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #557,875 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Booklist
Madrid novelist Somoza's latest thriller to appear in the U.S. (it was originally published in Spain in 2001) concerns a young girl who is found murdered and two police detectives who must find the killer before he strikes again. But it's the world of the novel that captures our interest, not the whodunit aspect. The action takes place in the bizarre subculture of hyperdramatic art, in which the works of art are actual, living people, painted and posed like living mannequins. It is a world in which 14-year-old girls (like the murder victim) can be sold to collectors, not as people but as artworks. And sold for a lot of money, too. It's a fascinating and certainly disquieting underworld, and readers are drawn deep into it by Somoza's stylish prose (nicely translated by Caistor). Fans of mysteries in which the setting takes precedence over the story should be steered toward this one. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
Chilly, clever and gripping by turns. SUNDAY TIMES Simply delicious. It stubbornly fails to be pigeon-holed: it is a dark thriller and more... This is an important novel which demands to be read- and heeded. IRISH EXAMINER Somoza breathes originality, wit, satire, and suspense into a moribund genre. GOOD BOOK GUIDE Wonderfully aberrant ideas about humanity and aesthetics are spun out of this intriguing fiction... Somoza entices us along with shifts in tempo, offbeat aesthetic and pragmatic interrogations by the two detectives, and some crankily comic visions of the f TLS
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Customer Reviews
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.5 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating, May 13 2005
By Helios - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Art Of Murder (Paperback)
I doubt there are many authors in the world today with the imagination & creativity of Somoza.Even though the concepts were slightly weird at the start, they soon became utterly engrossing. The author does an amazing job creating & developing backgrounds and characters.
Highlighting the fact that it's not a traditional "murder mystery" and that the ending is somewhat predictable is simply missing the point.
Every young, aspiring writer should read this. Easily 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Read, Aug 31 2007
By celyn - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Art of Murder (Paperback)
I found this to be a thoroughly entertaining, provocative, intelligent book. One of my litmus tests is: would you read it again? And I have, perhaps three or four times. I always find something new in it. I am actually staggered that this book is not more well-known!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Art of Murder, July 22 2009
By bumuling - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Art of Murder (Paperback)
The subculture Somoza has created here is fascinating, strange and somewhat fetishistic. The investigators are not police detectives, but administrators in charge of security for the artistic genius Bruno Van Tysch, whose human "paintings" have been targeted by a killer.The story moves between the politics behind the investigation (not the police procedures but behind-the-scenes power struggles among different branches of Van Tysch's organization, and lots of talk about the money at stake if his priceless works are damaged or lost) and the experience of one human "canvas" as she is stretched, primed, sketched, and otherwise prepared to become a master work.
Much of the novel is taken up with that process, and with the controversies surrounding humans-as-art. The investigators cannot even agree as to whether the torture and murder of one of Van Tysch's paintings was "sadistic"-- was she, after all, human, or only a canvas?
Absorbing, complex, a great read.
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