The Mystery of the Lost Cezanne

August 3, 2015
Longworth’s charming, if talky, fifth Verlaque and Bonnet mystery (after 2014’s Murder on the Île Sordou) looks at the art world. The book alternates between the now troubled relationship between Antoine Verlaque, the chief magistrate of Aix-en-Provence, France, and his girlfriend, law professor Marine Bonnet, and flashbacks to the 19th-century life of artist Paul Cézanne, who resided for years in Aix. The investigation starts with the violent death of a retired postal worker and discovery in his apartment of a putative Cézanne painting, unknown to the art world, which leads to an American art history professor with secrets of her own. Cézanne’s presence infuses the whole story, and the relationship between the painter and a sympathetic young bakery clerk is the highlight, whereas the main story is marred by long passages on art history, lengthy descriptions of the city, and the self-absorption of some of the main characters. Agent: Katherine Fausset, Curtis Brown.

August 1, 2015
Recently returned from holiday (Murder on the Ile Sordou, 2014), examining magistrate Antoine Verlaque is confronted with a dead postman, a mysterious painting, a beautiful professor, and a short-tempered lover.Managing a small apartment building in the old city of Aix-en-Provence is not easy. But Mme. Chazeau handles the tenants of 23 rue Boulegon, famous as the last residence of Paul Cezanne, with aplomb. That is, until the discussion of who should have use of the small debarras on the first floor. Dr. Pitavy, a podiatrist, wants to use it for spare equipment. Mme. Joubert, who rents her two flats to students, wants one of her tenants to be able to keep her bicycle there. Eric and Francoise Legendre, having just moved in, have no opinion. But when retired mailman Rene Rouquet learns that the building's deed names him owner of the small storeroom, he goes postal, leaving the meeting and then quarreling on the street with Pierre Millot, who runs out to retrieve him. This disagreement is all the more uncomfortable for young Millot when Rouquet turns up dead. But even more uncomfortable is Rebecca Schultz, the striking African-American art historian who's standing in Rouquet's apartment, over his corpse, when Verlaque discovers it. Now Verlaque is charged not only with solving Rene's murder, but with unraveling the mystery of the painting he left behind: a portrait painted with Cezanne's characteristic brush strokes, but not of the artist's somber mistress, Hortense. Instead, it's an image of a smiling young girl in colorful Provencal garb. Who's the girl? Is the painting a Cezanne? Verlaque tackles these puzzles, all the while struggling with a coldness growing between him and longtime love Marine Bonnet. Art theft is a hot topic on the mystery scene, and no one's heist is livelier than Longworth's.

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August 1, 2015
In her fifth installment in the Verlaque and Bonnet series, Longworth juxtaposes contemporary Aix-en-Provence with that of the French Impressionists who once lived there. Much of Aix remains unchanged: the buildings intact, the cafe-hangouts of the artists still operating. The Route de Cezanne is the same road the artist took every day, easel on his back. The central mystery here concerns a Cezanne painting. Antoine Verlaque, Aix's magistrate and sometime sleuth, is invited by a friend in his cigar club to view a rolled-up canvas in his apartment, where Cezanne himself once lived in. The current occupant is convinced the painting is an undiscovered Cezanne. When Verlaque arrives, he discovers his old friend dead on the floor, with a beautiful woman hovering over him. The canvas is missing. Verlaque and his girlfriend, Marine Bonnet, a law professor at Aix University, investigate the double mystery of the murder (with another one following) and the painting's provenance. Longworth includes a narrative about the artist and his friends, which deepens our knowledge of Cezanne. A sure thing for fans of art-themed mysteries.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)