THE RESURRECTION MAN

This tenth outing for investigators (specializing in art and antiques) Max and Sarah Bittersohn (The Silver Ghost, 1988, etc.) finds them spending a summer in Sarah's Beacon Hill house in Boston and deeply involved in the murder of Sarah's aged old friend George Protheroe, found stabbed to death in the overstuffed mansion he shared with unflappable wife Anora. Max and Sarah sense a connection to recent thefts of artworks newly restored by Bartolo Arbalest, who calls himself ``the Resurrection Man.'' After a series of eerie misfortunes, Arbalest has set up a tightly controlled atelier of artisans and restorers—all of them bodyguarded by patrician Carnaby Goudge. As mourners gather at the Protheroe home after George's funeral, a second murder begins to reveal the long-ago-in-India roots of the present carnage. The heavy-handed, near-parody plot is loaded with excess in all departments—myriad details of food, clothes, and furniture; arch dialogue; red herrings; fey characters; and, in the end, massive ennui. Strictly for faithful fans.