THE ART OF VIOLENCE

Whatever good feelings private eye Bill Smith may have about being back in New York after his recent trip to far-off Mississippi are muted by the fact that he’s dealing with his honored series’ most wacko client.

Six years ago, Bill did his best to round up evidence that Sam Tabor, who stabbed Amy Evans to death, was suffering a bout of temporary insanity. But Sam, ignoring the advice of everyone around him, pleaded instead to a reduced charge and went to prison, where he worked on his out-there paintings and his paranoia. Now that he’s been discovered by the art world, more or less legitimized by imperious gallery owner Sherron Konecki, and paroled, Sam, an alcoholic subject to regular blackouts, is convinced he’s killed two other women whose murders coincided with big events in his life. Since “I can handle prison, Smith, but not the [looney] bin,” he wants Bill to prove that he killed Annika Hausman and Tiffany Traynor, and he’s willing to confess his presumptive guilt to Detective Angela Grimaldi, who really doesn’t want to hear about it, and anyone else who’s likely to help lock him up. As Bill and Lydia Chin, his professional and personal partner, make the rounds of witnesses who might clear Sam by serving as alternate suspects, two things gradually become clear. One is that Sam’s relatives, friends, neighbors, colleagues, and collectors seem hellbent on proving they’re at least as neurotic, venal, explosive, and crazy as Sam. The other is that whoever’s killing young women with short blond hair isn’t done.

A rewardingly savvy tour of Manhattan’s demented art scene with maybe one climax too many.