Customer Reviews

The Art of Murder

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I doubt there are many authors in the world today with the imagination & creativity of Somoza.

Even though the concepts were slightly weird at the start, they soon became utterly engrossing. The author does an amazing job creating & developing backgrounds and characters.

Highlighting the fact that it's not a traditional "murder mystery" and that the ending is somewhat predictable is simply missing the point.

Every young, aspiring writer should read this. Easily 5 stars.

I found this to be a thoroughly entertaining, provocative, intelligent book. One of my litmus tests is: would you read it again? And I have, perhaps three or four times. I always find something new in it. I am actually staggered that this book is not more well-known!

The subculture Somoza has created here is fascinating, strange and somewhat fetishistic. The investigators are not police detectives, but administrators in charge of security for the artistic genius Bruno Van Tysch, whose human "paintings" have been targeted by a killer.

The story moves between the politics behind the investigation (not the police procedures but behind-the-scenes power struggles among different branches of Van Tysch's organization, and lots of talk about the money at stake if his priceless works are damaged or lost) and the experience of one human "canvas" as she is stretched, primed, sketched, and otherwise prepared to become a master work.

Much of the novel is taken up with that process, and with the controversies surrounding humans-as-art. The investigators cannot even agree as to whether the torture and murder of one of Van Tysch's paintings was "sadistic"-- was she, after all, human, or only a canvas?

Absorbing, complex, a great read.

Not a great murder mystery as such, but a very interesting novel that challenges our perceptions of what constitutes art.

Somoza raises really provocative questions as to what we would do for art, is art good because of the way it is marketed and is it better for having a hefty price tag?

The other questions he leaves us with is when is nudity art and when is it pornography? Does this change with how old the model is or how much they want to do it? When does art become abuse and is it excusable because it is art?

I found the concept of the novel intriguing, being a futuristic Europe but with current structures of business and employment exploring the ideal of art. That the book was marketed as a murder/mystery/crime novel was unfortunate as that part of the novel really didn't quite work and got bogged down in the detail of art galleries and art works.

I recommend the book for anyone interested in art or who likes to be extended with new ideas.