THE BISHOP IN THE BACK SEAT

by Clarissa Watson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1979

Watson has created a shrewdly modern, wryly female narrator in socially-connected painter Persis Willum of Gull Harbor, Long Island (The Fourth Stage of Gainsborough Brown, 1978); but this second bit of detection takes Persis away from her natural habitat and deep into the farfetched Had-I-But-Known intrigue genre. It all begins with paintings stolen from a new Gull Harbor museum (reluctant Persis is on the board): two nuns in blackface steal a just-arrived Rembrandt and kidnap an innocent bystander, the sweet Dutch-born museum director is shot (to die suspiciously later, in hospital), and then a Degas and a Whistler disappear during the museum's opening party. Persis, sleuthing, is chloroformed and threatened but finds bodies, possible romance (with local tycoon Willem de Groot), and clues--which lead her to Europe, where she Perils-of-Paulines it while uncovering old Nazi art-thefts and a still-lurking mastermind. Unfortunately, all these revelations bunch up badly and also leave little room for Watson's strongest suit: lightly satiric views of today's art-world folk (like ""Buffalo Horowitz,"" n‚ Harry, guru of nouveau Western illustration). So: sleek narration, ungainly plotting--a mixed hag that promises better things if Persis can be persuaded to stay closer to the milieu she knows so well.

Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Atheneum

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979

Categories: FICTION