Fugitive Colors - Softcover

Maron, Margaret

4.06

826 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0985910739 ISBN 13: 9780985910730

Publisher: Oconee Spirit Press LLC, 2014

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Lt. Sigrid Harald-prickly, difficult, brilliant at solving baffling cases-returns for the eighth and final book in this series. Losing a fellow officer in a shoot-out is enough to rattle her cool, controlled demeanor, but she is also devastated by the loss of her lover, world-famous Oscar Nauman. She withdraws from her colleagues, her career, her life; but she cannot escape the art world. Nauman has left her his paintings worth millions and galleries are clamoring to sell them. Just as time has faded the warm flesh tones early Italian masters used when painting the Madonna, time lets Sigrid begin to see through the vibrant surface of New York's art world to the interplay of revenge and greed beneath. When a shocking homicide occurs, it hits close to home for Sigrid, implicating Oscar's friends and fellow artists. Fugitive Colors goes beyond the simple whodunit to combine a top-notch mystery with a portrait of a woman cop indelibly changed-able to notice the background details, the subtle shades, and the feelings that ultimately damn or save us all. "Maron adeptly establishes a coolly thematic and deceptive link among the deaths as she constructs her affecting mystery out of distinctive blend of art-world politics, past crimes and present grief." - Publishers Weekly

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From Publishers Weekly:

Although it has been five years since readers last met NYPD homicide detective Lt. Sigrid Harald (in Past Imperfect), only two fictional months have elapsed since Sigrid's lover, painter Oscar Nauman, died and left his entire estate, worth millions, to her as both legatee and executor. Still grieving, Sigrid returns to work and to the Manhattan art scene to authorize a Nauman retrospective?and it's tough to say which venue is less civilized. While Sigrid's detectives cope with a mother who insists her ne'er-do-well son's suicide was really murder, Sigrid herself gets a look at the dirt trapped under high culture's polished veneer. Soon after a painter angrily causes a ruckus at an opening staged by a prominent art dealer, Sigrid discovers the dealer's bludgeoned corpse in Oscar's?now her?studio apartment. Although Sigrid assigns one of her men to take charge of the case, it is her own sensitivity to enmities and old grudges in the art world that finally reveals the entire picture, although not before another life is lost. Maron adeptly establishes a coolly thematic and deceptive link among the deaths as she constructs her affecting mystery out of distinctive blend of art-world politics, past crimes and present grief.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist:

Although Maron is best known for her lively mysteries featuring North Carolina judge Deborah Knott, she's also the author of eight novels featuring cool, self-contained NYPD Lieutenant Sigrid Harald. Here an emotional Sigrid is caught in the middle of personal tragedy when her lover, artist Oscar Nauman, is killed in an automobile accident. After narrowly escaping death herself in a shoot-out, Sigrid is understandably devastated to learn that Oscar is dead. The fact that he's left her his paintings, making her a very wealthy woman, is no consolation. Sigrid soon finds herself caught up in the New York art scene--much against her will--as gallery owners and friends of Oscar's decide to stage a memorial retrospective. When one of the gallery owners is found dead in Oscar's apartment, Sigrid must stop being the grieving lover and once again become the calculating cop. As always, Maron offers readers an intriguing, entertaining story, albeit one that's very different in tone and style from her Deborah Knott books. A fine choice and one that's sure to prove popular with Maron fans new and old. Emily Melton

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