RogerBW's Blog

1982, cozy American detective fiction; third of MacLeod's novels of Sarah Kelling and Max Bittersohn. At a private art museum, a guard falls to his death, having been complaining that his favourite Rubens is different these days.

MacLeod's earlier books have concentrated on the characters and let the mystery drift somewhat; this one is rather more balanced. Bittersohn of course is already an art expert, and he draws Kelling into the investigation partly for her skills and partly because he's clearly fallen headlong for her. That romance is not rushed – if anything it's drawn out to excess – but it's pleasing to see the business spread over several books as both characters think about what they're doing. The Thin Man films are obvious inspiration; MacLeod is no Hammett, or even Hackett and Goodrich, to write truly sparkling dialogue, but she makes a decent fist of it nonetheless.

There are plenty of the usual characters too, of course, some of them returning from previous books: more of Sarah's relatives, a "Polish countess" who may in fact be slightly better than she should be, a musical impresario who knows everybody, and a group of cheerful art forgers:

"Man, that Lupe is a gas," muttered the cynic who was now sprawled across Sarah's left foot. "He copies them Mondrians off the linoleum at Sears and Sawbuck. Man, I say a real creative artist ought to think up his own Mondrians."

The eventual solution relies on someone's having been extremely gullible over a very long period; I'd quibble, but I'm sure there are examples of such in the real world.

It's still quick and light reading, but there's the occasional hint of more substance that manages to anchor the story in reality rather than Amateur Detective World: like the way the entire Boston Police Department now seems to know Sarah and worry when she's involved in another death, or when an impoverished woman puts on her best show:

At throat and ears were pearls so discreet as to seem genuine.

Followed by The Bilbao Looking Glass.