The Art of Deception [Paperback]

Elizabeth Ironside (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 16, 2009

Art historian Nicholas Ochterlonie is the very model of a modern English gentleman, with a perfectly ordered life. But when his wife inexplicably demands a divorce, he finds himself diving into uncertainty like a junkie with a new drug. Soon he is risking his professional reputation, breaking the law, and embarking on a delirious affair with the mysterious Julian, beautiful and badly damaged by her past with a Russian gangster. Protecting Julian from the Mafya and challenging his colleagues? pet convictions give Nicholas an intoxicating new sense of himself. Of course, all addicts believe they?re in control?until they aren?t any more.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

First published in the U.K. in 1998, Ironside's solid thriller provides an intriguing look at the contemporary art world. London art historian Nicholas Ochterlonie, while returning one evening to his late mother's flat, where he's lived since his divorce, rescues a woman from an apparent street mugging. The victim turns out to be his next-door neighbor, Julian Bennet, and the two soon become lovers. Ochterlonie is sure that the assault wasn't random and that a threat still looms. Meanwhile, he creates controversy with his growing and increasingly vocal suspicions that a famous Vermeer portrait has been misattributed to the painter. The plot thickens when a police officer from the fraud squad stops by to ask about the real owner of Bennet's apartment, a shady Russian businessman. Ironside (A Very Private Enterprise) does a good job of making her not-entirely-sympathetic lead accessible. (Dec.)
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From Booklist

Two tales of deception—involving the authenticity of a Vermeer painting and the operations of the Russian mafia—are intertwined in Ironside’s tales (following A Good Death, 2009). At the center of both plot threads is London historian and psychologist Nicholas Ochterlonie, who is staying in his late mother’s flat after his wife unexpectedly leaves him. Assisting in what seems a random mugging, he meets his neighbor, the strikingly beautiful Julian Bennet, with whom he is soon sexually obsessed and sharing living quarters, despite her lingering feelings for her former Russian lover. Julian first assists Nick in gaining documentation about the provenance of the Vermeer painting Lady in a Pelisse displayed in a London foundation, then reveals her past with Harvard-educated Anatoli Voskresensky and his banking cohorts, the old-style Uzbek Dyadya and the whiz kid Igor. An accomplished and stylish character study, yet oddly short of passion and suspense for a story dealing with obsession. --Michele Leber

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Felony & Mayhem (December 16, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1934609404
• ISBN-13: 978-1934609408
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #240,963 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The ultimate femme fatale, December 16, 2009

By 

Patto (Vermont) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: The Art of Deception (Paperback)

The Art of Deception goes beyond genre. It's a thriller, a psychological novel, a love story and a literary tour de force all in one. The subject is boldly philosophical: what is real?

There are two parallel struggles with reality. Nicholas Ochterlonie, professor of art history, is questioning the authenticity of a Vermeer, an investigation that could destroy careers. Then there's Nick's struggle to comprehend his lover, Julian Bennet, a classic femme fatale, breathtakingly beautiful, maddeningly mysterious. This quest will also destroy lives.

The seventeenth-century portrait of a lovely woman in fur contrasts eerily with the cool carnivorous Julian in her Russian fur coat. The irony is that Nick's scholarly obsession with how artists deceive the eye does nothing to prepare him for the intricate deceptions of his mistress. Or his own self-deceptions.

Nick has just lost his wife and children to a surprise divorce suit. Preoccupied with his paper on art and deception he somehow failed to notice his wife's discontent. He moves into the London flat he inherited from his mother - and meets his future mistress in front of the flat, where she is being mugged.

Nick's attempts to learn about Julian's past lead him into scary encounters with cops and cutthroats. And he still doesn't know who Julian is or what she's thinking. Her past is like a pentimento in a portrait, a rejected image under the surface of a painting that the artist has painted out.

I despair of conveying the aesthetic feast this novel offers - the quirky characters, contradictory behaviors, shadowy motives, unforeseen developments and unexpected bursts of violence. The author has a positive genius for describing sensational happenings in the voice of reason. Truly a remarkable book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars We believe what we want to, April 30, 2010

By 

Deborah Barchi (Rhode Island, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Art of Deception (Paperback)

There are so many forms of deception in Elizabeth Ironside's complex thriller "The Art of Deception" that it's often difficult to tell who is lying all of the time, some of the time, or none of the time. In fact, almost everyone in this novel has something to hide, from others, or more dangerously, from themselves.

Art Historian Nicolas Octterlonie views the world through his own upper class rose colored glasses, so he is unprepared for the shock of his wife leaving him and taking their children with her. Cast out on his own, he is easy prey for an enticingly mysterious woman named Julian who turns to Nicolas for help and comfort after she survives a vicious mugging. Independent and sensuous as a cat, Julian lures the naive Nicolas into her world of high stakes international money laundering. Is it her association with the Russain Mafia that is setting off a string of serious, brutal attacks on Julian, or is it her failed love affair with a handsome Russian partner in crime named Anatoli who cold heartedly deserted her? Is Julian an innocent victim or an icy manipulator, eager for money, power, and revenge?

The answers are complex, and even the surprise ending is inconclusive. The first person narration puts the reader right in the center of the vortex of crime, passion, and betrayal. Along the way, as a kind of bonus, we learn quite a bit about the arcane world of authenticating famous paintings. "The art of Deception" is a fast and exciting book, well worth reading.