The Art of Dying: Partners in Crime #4 [Paperback]

Josh Lanyon (Author), Jordan Castillo Price (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 11, 2009

#4 in the PARTNERS IN CRIME SERIES! Lovers and Other Strangers by Josh Lanyon Recovering from a near fatal accident, artist Finn Barret returns to Seal Island in Maine to rest and recuperate. But Seal Island is haunted with memories, some sweet, some sad; three years ago Finn found his lover in the arms of Fitch, Finn's twin brother. Since that day, Finn has seen neither Conlan nor Fitch. In fact, no one has seen Fitch. What happened to him? Did Fitch run away, as everyone believes? Or did he meet a more sinister fate? To put the past to rest - and see if there's any chance of a future with Con - Finn must discover the truth. But the deeper he digs, the more reason he has to fear Con is the only one who knows what truly happened to Fitch... Body Art by Jordan Castillo Price His lover has betrayed and swindled Ray Carlucci out of everything he valued, including a tattoo business. Hounded by creditors, weary of heart, he accepts the job of chauffeur and body man for the dying owner of a remote estate. The island, minus its wealthy summer colony, is colorless in winter and Ray thinks he understands why staff on the estate periodically desert. But, he's baffled by, then drawn to, Anton, the eccentric artist who haunts the forest, bringing strange life to bizarre and disquieting sculptures amidst the ice and trees. When the body of a man who once held Ray's job rises from the frosty earth, Ray wonders what part Anton's wildness has in the escalating violence.

Product Details

• Paperback: 244 pages
• Publisher: MLR Press (May 11, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1934531251
• ISBN-13: 978-1934531259
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,132,875 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars very enjoyable read, but extremely disliked one of the characters, August 16, 2009

By 

Sirius - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Art of Dying: Partners in Crime #4 (Paperback)

How wierd is that? I think I have almost all the books that Josh Lanyon wrote, yes including his recent two volumes of Collected novellas, but I have never left a review. I loved all of them, period, end of story. Just loved them a lot. I am however leaving a review of his only story where I am guessing that I did not get out of the story what he was trying to convey.

Please do not get me wrong, I LOVED the writing, I thought it was gorgeous, I enjoyed the mystery a lot, I absolutely adored Finn. So what did I not like? Well, I found Con to be creepy and the connection between them I did not find believable. I mean, I do not mind that he did what he did as much, I mean I totally adore how Jake was handled in the Adrien English Series, but here, I don't know? I guess it was too short for me to believe his redemption, if that makes sense. And I guess since I found what he did because of with whom he did it to be extra creepy from the beginning, I did not believe his fast turnaround?

I don't know, I suppose romance did not work for me in this one, because I did not buy that Con ever loved Finn, and I especially did not buy Con's seeing the light as he claimed right after what he did. Am trying so hard to avoid spoilers here. Sorry if I am not making much sense.

As to Jordan Castillo Price's story, to make a long story short - absolutely loved it

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Lanyon for the Keeper Collection!, May 21, 2009

By 

Emerald Jaguar "Emmy" (Honolulu, HI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Art of Dying: Partners in Crime #4 (Paperback)

Bottom line up front:
....speechless here. There was this vibrant splash of color and a hauntingly beautiful storyline. I have to say that I think this is Lanyon's best work so far.

The rest:
Finn is a talented artist in a long line of renowned painters. He was raised on a very close-knit island in the middle of no place, but rather abruptly leaves for Manhattan when he discovers his lover in the arms of his twin brother. Bastages. After a horrific accident that leaves him scarred and weakened, Finn returns to Seal Island for to recover, only to find out that his twin hadn't been heard from in the three years since Finn left.

As upset as Finn still is with his brother, he's concerned that neither their mutual friends in Manhattan nor family on Seal Island have seen Fitch since that terrible day when the bastage banged his boyfriend. Finn was understandably still upset with Fitch, and was absolutely sure he could never forgive his twin, but he's a bit puzzled that nobody seems to care that Fitch has been missing for such a long period of time, or even bothered to look for the guy.

Fitch had a habit of leaving the island for months at a time, but never for so long before, and not without contacting any of his friends. To make things more interesting, who should pop up on the island again but Con, the ex-lover who thought sexing up a set of twins would be twice as nice.

With the help of Paul, Finn's good friend and one of Fitch's ex-playtoys, he does a little investigating. However, the response from the island's inhabitants is a bit perplexing. The general consensus is that Finn should just let sleeping dogs lie. Not even family was interested in finding out if Fitch was dead.

The more digging Finn and Paul did, the more Finn learned about his twin. Finn is shocked to learn after all this time that Fitch was pretty much despised by the townspeople, and that his twin was cruel to people when Finn wasn't around to see it. So we have a whole island of possible suspects, including Finn himself, who likely had the best reason to want Fitch dead.

I loved the way the story started out with vivid descriptions of color and light and ambiance. The writing here was lyrically lovely and very textured, almost touchable. Everything was lush and brilliantly picturesque. I was very much emotionally invested in the story, and with Finn, although I didn't always agree with his choices. That surprised me some, because there was a fair amount of angst here, and anyone who's read my reviews before knows I do NOT do emo stories. At all.

One bit that made no good sense to me was when Finn got to making out with Con. Ok, this is the guy who very likely last saw his twin alive, and that was because the bastage was boinking his brother behind his back. Con did apologize profusely, but readily admitted that part of that regret was because he got caught. Or, as Con put it, "I didn't mean for you to see that." Uh, yeah. So Con is a cheater, a liar, and quite possibly a murderer, yet here Finn is sucking face with the dude. Does not compute. There were also some typos where Finn and Fitch's names got switched around, causing mass confusion til I read a few times and got it straightened out.

I loved the mystery element here. I never saw the ending coming, which was a delightful surprise. Most Lanyon mysteries don't really require Scooby Doo and the gang to suss out the perpetrator in the first chapter. It hasn't really detracted from any of his stories thus far, but still...was nice to see that changed up a bit. There might be some smart cookies out there who figure it out fast, but I doubt it.

Overall, the gracefully alluring phrasing here completely sucked me in and turned Lovers and Other Strangers into a magical read that will be front and center on my keeper self. Can't wait for the print version of this. And I *really* like that title. Makes me giggle. MUST READ THIS BOOK!!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Art of Dying by Josh Lanyon & Jordan Castillo Price, June 28, 2009

By 

Elisa (Italy) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Art of Dying: Partners in Crime #4 (Paperback)

Due to the title I was expecting for the two stories in this anthology to be linked by the art world setting, but it was interesting to read how many other points of connection there were, two of them quite obvious: both mysteries are set in a small community, an island, the type of gated community where the rich and famous go to live during summer or to retire. And both of mysteries turn around a murder without a body, the died man is disappeared, but no one knows how.

Lovers and Other Strangers by Josh Lanyon

Finn is an artist; he is born in a family of artists and everyone expect from him to be the good twin, since his brother Fitch is the bad boy. While Finn has a strong bond with Seal Island, the place were he was raised, and he wouldn't want anything else if not living there and paint, Fitch has the wandering feet, always in search of something or someone new. And then a summer, Finn fell in love with Con, a neighbor he has known for all his life, but that summer was different. The relationship started as a summer fling, but for Finn was something more. And so when he discovered Con in an passionate embrace with Fitch, Finn had not the force to face it and ran away from them and the island. Now three years later, convalescent from a very bad car accident, Finn comes back home to find the peace that Seal Island always gave him. It doesn't matter if he has to face Fitch and Con, if they are living together, they have already stolen him his happiness, they can't steal him also his home. But when he arrives to Seal Island, he finds out that Fitch is disappeared three years before, the same day Finn left the island... No one knew what happened to him and the last person that probably saw him alive was Con, the same Con that now is telling Finn that he misses him and that also for Con was love, and not only a summer fling.

The plot turns mainly around the two twins, Finn and Fitch, and their story. There is a romance, but it's only a subplot, and it remains always in second line. Con is a nice man, but I have the feeling that he is more a dream, an unattainable man for Finn, and that if he suddenly becomes true, Finn maybe would be not more so interest in him. I have the feeling that Finn is more in love of the idea to be in love than of the man. On the other hand the mystery is really good, and since the community is so small, everyone has a reason to want Fitch dead, and everyone could be the guilty man. No one has a real alibi for that day and so it's nearly impossible to find out the culprit before the end of the story. The strange thing is that the only one who seems to mourn the loss of Fitch is his twin Finn, the one who probably has more reason than one to hate him. But as it is said in the book, and how you can understand from what I said, Finn is a good and nice guy, with not real bad feeling in him. And so, since Fitch wasn't loved so much, the reader is not in an hurry to find out who killed him.

Body Art by Jordan Castillo Price

The second story is maybe a little more strange, but basically with the same turning point. Ray arrives in a gated community on an island, Red Wing Island. He will be the new driver for a old and wealthy couple, the Whites. It's not clear how it happened, I summarized that his former lover probably has some responsibility, but Ray lost his business, a tattoo parlor, and now he is full of debt. A live in work is exactly what he needs, even if the arrangement is not exactly top of the notch. The house where he goes to live is isolated, Ray has no his own car, and in the house there are an old man with Alzheimer and three women... and being Ray gay, well, it means that he will be pretty lonely. Then in the wood near the house he meets Anton, the crazy artist who lives in a nearby cottage. And when I say crazy, I don't mean that he does strange sculpture, I mean that he is really crazy. Anton is a bipolar case, he tried to kill himself in the past, and he has moody up and down. But he is also really beautiful, and gay, and maybe since he is lonely, or maybe since, in the crazy situation he is in, Anton doesn't seem so crazy after all, Ray falls soon and hard for him. In two day they are lovers, and in one day more, a dead man is found in the wood: he is Stanley, the former driver, and apparently Anton's previous friend. Again everyone in the small community have reason to hate Stanley, and everyone could be the guilty.

This time the romance is a little more center stage, on the contrary of the previous story, the murder is not so important, maybe since the murdered is not someone so much involved with the hero. Ray has no real reason to find out who killed Stanley, he is more interested in find out that it wasn't Anton who did it. The nice thing is that, in a way or the other, Anton is really a unsteady man, someone that probably will be never able to live alone on his own. If Ray decides to bring on their relationship, he will be always the rock, with time he will become the caretaker... but he sees Anton with a lover eyes, and he is willing to do so.