A beguiling adventure involving valuable paintings and international conspiracy.
A gallery owner finds herself in over her head in Moore’s fast-paced novel of the early-1990s art world.
Ally Blake, a widowed mother of two and owner of a financially strapped art gallery in San Diego, risks everything to exhibit at a Bogotá art fair and hopefully make it big. Specializing in Latin American art, she’s joined by Uruguayan artist Mateo Lugano, who’s also hoping to get his big break at the fair. After struggling to get her crates full of valuable art—on which her livelihood depends—free from customs, Ally notices additional paintings have been added to her collection. To her astonishment, the two mystery paintings are by Ponce Goméz, one of the most recognizable painters in the world, whose pieces go for millions. It’s revealed that David Martinez, an ex-boyfriend of Ally’s working in the U.S. State Department, is in Bogotá, conveniently at the same time that she discovers the Gomézes. After some prodding, David reveals that the American government has involved her in an off-the-books operation whose details are revealed later. Another shocking twist, which increases the tension of the already high-stakes narrative, involves none other than the notorious drug trafficker Pablo Escobar. Moore’s previous book, Attribution (2022), also involved stolen art, but this book presents a detailed, behind-the-scenes look at those who deal in paintings of a different era, while also offering all the elements of a nail-biting thriller. The author drives the narrative with the fact that Ally ultimately has no desire to add fuel to revolutionary fire in yet another South American country. It results in a pulse-pounding game of cat-and-mouse as she tries to avoid operatives of the U.S. government and the deadly cartel, as well as seedy art dealers trying to get their hands on the paintings.
A beguiling adventure involving valuable paintings and international conspiracy.Pub Date: May 14, 2024
ISBN: 9781647426125
Page Count: 304
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that...
Twenty-four years after a traumatic disappearance tore a Georgia family apart, Slaughter’s scorching stand-alone picks them up and shreds them all over again.
The Carrolls have never been the same since 19-year-old Julia vanished. After years of fruitlessly pestering the police, her veterinarian father, Sam, killed himself; her librarian mother, Helen, still keeps the girl's bedroom untouched, just in case. Julia’s sisters have been equally scarred. Lydia Delgado has sold herself for drugs countless times, though she’s been clean for years now; Claire Scott has just been paroled after knee-capping her tennis partner for a thoughtless remark. The evening that Claire’s ankle bracelet comes off, her architect husband, Paul, is callously murdered before her eyes and, without a moment's letup, she stumbles on a mountainous cache of snuff porn. Paul’s business partner, Adam Quinn, demands information from Claire and threatens her with dire consequences if she doesn’t deliver. The Dunwoody police prove as ineffectual as ever. FBI agent Fred Nolan is more suavely menacing than helpful. So Lydia and Claire, who’ve grown so far apart that they’re virtual strangers, are unwillingly thrown back on each other for help. Once she’s plunged you into this maelstrom, Slaughter shreds your own nerves along with those of the sisters, not simply by a parade of gruesome revelations—though she supplies them in abundance—but by peeling back layer after layer from beloved family members Claire and Lydia thought they knew. The results are harrowing.
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that she makes most of her high-wire competition look pallid, formulaic, or just plain fake.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-242905-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
