Customer Reviews

O' Artful Death (Sweeney St. George Mystery)

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

College professor Sweeney St. George is looking forward to a nice quiet Christmas break alone in her apartment. But when her friend Toby shows her a picture of a unique gravestone near his aunt and uncle, she can't resist investigating. After all, it'll make a perfect chapter in her book on gravestones of New England.

The stone is located in an artist's colony in Vermont dating back to the late 1800's. Rumor is that the young woman immortalized by that stone was murdered by one of the artists, but no arrests were ever made.

Even before Sweeney arrives, the woman's great-niece is murdered. Ruth Kimball told Sweeney on the phone about the rumors. Is there a connection between the gravestone, the mysterious death of 115 years ago, and the murder today? If Sweeney wants the truth about this unique stone, she'll have to find out.

I was intrigued by the premise of this book when I first heard about it, but put off getting it. That was a mistake. This is a wonderfully written debut. The descriptions make the colony come to vivid life. The style is relaxed, inviting you to sit back and enjoy. I did have problems keeping all the character and the relations to those from the past straight, but with some work I was able to figure it all out. The plot was wonderful, giving us new information but keeping us in the dark until the end with plenty of clues and red herrings sprinkled throughout the book.

I've fallen under the spell of this author and series. I can't wait for the next book to come out. I highly recommend you pick up this excellent debut today.

I don't favor a particular genre, I just favor good writing and it's especially delightful to read such terrific writing by a new novelist. Sarah Stewart Taylor doesn't just give us a twisting, puzzling plot, she gives us art, poetry, and an ability to cast a sentence, a paragraph, a scene, a whole story so perfectly that it's just not possible to stop reading it. It was a thoroughly enjoyable read, and the main character, Sweeney St. George is someone I am looking forward to seeing more of. This mystery is really top notch--in writing, in story, and in mystery!

"O' Artful Death" immediately appealed to me because Sarah Stewart Taylor combined a couple of topics in which I have more than a passing interest. The first is visiting cemeteries and checking out really old gravestones, which I can trace back to stumbling across the Granary Burial Ground in Boston where I discovered John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, Peter Faneuil, and the victims of the Boston Massacre lie in rest. But what I remember is the tombstone for a doctor who came from England to treat an epidemic and ended up dying from it and the various symbols inscribed on colonial tombstones. So I can understand Sweeney St. George's interest in the iconography of death, and when she discovers a macabre graveyard statue of a beautiful nude woman lying in a boat that defies the conventions of the time and whose artist is unknown I can appreciate her wanting to solve the mystery.

The second area of resonance is that the strange monument in question is found in a graveyard in Vermont's historic Byzantium Art Colony, because I have taught a course on American utopian communities. While the places we studied were rarely artistic enclaves, there is an affinity between the two, plus I have been to Taos, New Mexico, so there. Taylor's story is at a disadvantage because we do not get to actually see the paintings and sculptures that are key to the narrative, but that has not exactly stopped Dan Brown from being successful (although I note there are now illustrated versions of "The Da Vinci Code" available that allow you to see the same things as Robert Langdon; then again Brown's art and artifacts are real). This aspect is especially intriguing because the Byzantium of the past is as much of a part of the story as the Byzantium of today.

It is winter break and Sweeney, a 28-year-old college professor, travels from Cambridge to Byzantium to spend the holiday with friends and see what she can discover about the grave of Mary Elizabeth Denholm, who reportedly drowned a century earlier. Before making the trip Sweeney had contacted one of the locals in Byzantium, Ruth Kimball, about Mary and her graveyard statue, and learns that there is an old story that Mary was murdered by one of the artists in the art colony and the whole thing was hushed up. Sweeney is intrigued but before she even leaves on her trip Ruth Kimball is found dead in the graveyard, apparently a suicide and our heroine cannot shake the suspicion that somehow this death and her inquiry are related. But how could her questions about a gravestone get a woman killed?

Despite that suspicion one of the strengths of Taylor's first mystery novel is that Sweeney St. George does not spend most of her time trying to figure out if Ruth Kimball was murdered and if so by whom. She is much more interested in who might have murdered Mary Denholm and in discovering who carved her monument than in playing detective, and so it is not until she has reason to believe that her own life might be in danger that Sweeney purposefully accepts her role. Besides, everybody in Byzantium is talking about the rash of burglaries that have plagued the community when they are not disparaging the idea of building condominiums in their neck of the woods. Then there is the revelation that up in Vermont her friend Toby is becoming close to Rosemary Burgess and that Ian Ball, who is visiting from England, seems to be paying her a lot of attention. But Sweeney has her own emotional baggage when it comes to relationships and that comes into play as well.

The fact that we are ahead of Sweeney in knowing that Ruth Kimball was indeed murdered does not work against this mystery because we are not going to figure things out ahead of our heroine we are just going to enjoy her putting the pieces together. I liked the way Sweeney thinks things through, her mind racing ahead of the facts to try and make things fit, and I especially liked that she is not always right because in the end finding out that you are wrong about something can also provide useful information. I did pick up on what ended up being the one of the key clues but I could not figure out how it played into the solving the mystery, which is great because the best mystery is not going to be the one where you figure everything out early but rather the one where you are so close that when everything is revealed you are wondering why you did not see it coming. If you do not remember the key clues when the solution is laid out for you then a mystery author has failed, and that is not the case with Taylor. She even got me on one of the clues that I thought was awfully damn convenient, but it turned out to be a red herring. Taylor gets points for that too in her excellent first Sweeney St. George mystery.

Sarah Stewart Taylor's first book introduces us to Sweeney St. George, an art history professor with a troubled past and an affinity for all things macabre. Sweeney is an engaging character; smart, but not smug, brash, but not obnoxious. She is likeable most of the time, but Taylor doesn't make her perfect, which is a real strength of the book.

The plot is quite clever. Taylor shows some of her influences rather clearly (Possession by A.S. Byatt comes to mind), but never copies them, instead creating an original and enjoyable mystery.

There are too many characters that don't get enough attention, and it took me some time to sort out exactly who everyone was, but this was a minor failing, as her main characters were very well fleshed out.

If you enjoy mysteries with an intellectual bent, give it a try.

This held my attention and for the large part was quite enjoyable and vivid. I could really picture things, which is pretty unusual for me...it was almost like watching a movie as well. The main character was interesting but I never felt too close to her. I had a problem keeping a lot of the other characters straight...with similar (to me at least) sounding names like Willow, Britta, Tripp, Electra...a lot of the time I really couldnt grasp some of the less vital narration, but it didn't end up mattering that much. The resolution didn't seem to have had too many hints either, so not necesssarily great as a "who done it" but for evoking an eerie, mystical and yet enticing and exotic air...effective. It might not be to everyone's taste, but if you like a mystery crossed with elements of Byatt's "Possession", if you like Pre-Raphaellite art and what surrounds it, if you want to take your mind off your own less exotic issues, try it!

Are your shelves cluttered with mysteries? Have you stopped buying novels or books period just because every horizontal surface at home is covered in perilously spiralling stacks of printed and bound matter that sway in the slightest indoor breeze? Don't worry, because O' Artful Death, a brilliant debut by Sarah Stewart Taylor, is not a book that will make you pause briefly in appreciation for its author's talent and hard work as you place it in what was formerly the refrigerator, lately the chilly annex to your already-considerable library. No, this is the all-too-rare book that will not further reduce the space left for sleeping on your bed because you will want to share it with others, that demands by the inspired construction of its plot, the strength of its characters (especially the immediately indelible Sweeney St. George) and the excellence of its prose to be pressed enthusiastically into the hands of friends and, yes, even strangers; introduce yourself if they seem wary, because they are going to want to track you down and thank you later. Don't count, however, on getting your copy back-they will most likely already have raved about and passed it off to someone else. Truly compelling from start to finish, and I am now left eagerly anticipating Sweeney's next appearance on the page. Highly recommended.

So many mysteries are solved by hardened, anguished detectives (whether formally employed or not) living in bleak cities. Looking for murders that happen in idyllic settings or nerdy professors who can also solve crimes? That's what you get in O' Artful Death. Sweeney (the protagonist) is still anguished in her own way but much less cyncial than your average crime-solver due to her sheltered place in academia. Plus, if you are looking for an interesting niche in American history to explore, Taylor's descriptions of the culture of early arts colonies are fascinating. It's made me curious to see the works of American artists active in arts colonies over the past several centuries. Recommended for front porch reading with a glass of wine after work.

I had such a hard time finishing this book.

I saw this book after I finished the Fiona Mountain Genealogical Mystery books and thought that it would be as interesting. Both Natasha and Sweeney are complicated women due to their pasts and personal relationships with unique careers.

Atmosphere plays a big role in all the novels but for some reason while the subject matter is fascinating and the beginnings are intriguing-something stalls in the telling and makes finishing the novel an exercise in sloughing through.

I think the problem in O'Artful Death was the other characters. For the most part they are pretty unlikeable and although for a mystery that is not a big deal. I found one character really irritating and in the end that is the character who turns out to be instigator.

I do want to read the next three in the series-the writing and the theme are interesting. And I can recommend O'Artful Death as a short reading experience. Somehow I expect either in the way of presentation or characterization but writing is an ongoing skill-the seed of a good mystery novel is there. I am curious about the rest of the series so I suspect that is a good thing.

What a terrific read! Great characters, atmospheric setting, manages to capture the feel of the area as well as the academic environment. Great plot twists...can't wait to read another of her books.

Loved this book! Took it along for a July 4th holiday trip back East and it's major flaw was that it was over so fast! I couldn't put it down until I found out Whodunnit. I grew up in the area Taylor describes, and she did an accurate, nuanced job of transporting the reader to that beautiful place. I recently read The DaVinci Code and Taylor's book was just as fun in terms of learning about arcane facets of our world which always were there (tombstone making is a 'fashion industry' which changes over the centuries), but most of us never take the time to notice or consider. Hope Taylor writes more!