Man with a Squirrel (Fred Taylor Art Series, 2) - Softcover

Kilmer, Nicholas

3.83

47 ratings by Goodreads

9781890208394: Man with a Squirrel (Fred Taylor Art Series, 2)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1890208396 ISBN 13: 9781890208394

Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press, 2000

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Cambridge art expert Fred Taylor, consultant to a rich and omnivorous Beacon Hill collector, is disturbed by discovering that the harmless old gent who'd been haunting Fred's strongminded lover, librarian Molly Riley, lies dead on the banks of the Charles. Soon Fred's distracted by a second find, a fragment of a painting. It lies in antique dealer Oona Imry's shop. Fred feels in his gut that the piece of canvas, handsomely portraying a squirrel at a man's feet, might be by John Singleton Copley.
His boss, Clayton Reed, charms Oona into selling him the squirrel, then sends legman Fred out to look for the rest of the painting. A new fragment shortly arrives from the hands of Oona 's nephew, gratis, after Oona dies under a train. Are the canvases tied to her murder and that of Molly's stalker? Is Fred on some kind of killer treasure hunt?
Art dealer and painter Kilmer delights in mirroring comtemporary crimes with well-researched and compelling use of history. Erudite and witty, he keeps the reader's unflagging interest through a combination of clever puzzle construction and deft narrative understatement.

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From AudioFile:

For the first few minutes of this recording one may feel that Patrick Cullen's reading is far too flat and mechanical. But presently one finds oneself completely engrossed in the story and hardly aware of the reader. In short, this recording is an excellent example for those who feel that an audiobook reader should be neutral, interpreting as little as possible. In this case it works, no doubt helped by fine writing and a mystery that is more intellectual puzzle than emotional thriller. Cullen's reading is not, in fact, flat, but finely controlled understatement: intelligent and free of distractions. Unusually clear sound further enhances the transparent effortlessness of this recording. J.N. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Kirkus Reviews:

It isn't long after the harmless old gent who'd staked out his librarian lover Molly Riley's place turns up dead on the banks of the Charles that Fred Taylor comes on a much more appealing, though equally serendipitous, find in antique dealer Oona Imry's shop: a fragment of a painting that just might be by John Singleton Copley. Fred's employer, omnivorous art collector Clayton Reed, charms Oona into selling the handsomely painted squirrel at a man's feet, and Fred promptly goes hunting for the rest of the canvas. But the second third, though it's free for the taking, comes at a much higher price: Oona's pianist nephew Marek Hrics� gives it to Fred after semi-nude Oona's been ground under the wheels of a train. The lethal treasure hunt for the last third of the Copley (if that's what it is) is obviously tied in to the defunct stalker, and to the mumbo-jumbo malpractice of Satanic deprogrammer Dr. Eunice Cover-Hoover, who's been lurking equally portentously in the shadows of Molly's telephone from the word go. Watching Fred follow the trail from Copley to Satan--by way of Adult Rescue, Inc., a coven of the weirdest heavies you've ever seen outside the astral realm--stands in for the sort of mystery that would have you asking whodunit. Fred remains as charming as in his debut (Harmony in Flesh and Black, 1995), and if the culprits aren't exactly the stuff of nightmares, they pack all the menace of good comic-book villains. -- Copyright �1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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