Customer Reviews

Cavalier In White

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Of the 30 Marcia Muller books I've read (excluding the ones co-authored or edited with Bill Pronzini), this is one of my 3 favorites. It's the initial book of her Joanna Stark trilogy, introducing one of her three heroines. The other two are: "There Hangs the Knife" and "Dark Star." I think this is the best of the 3. It's certainly interesting to see Muller write of protagonists other than Sharon McCone--demonstrates her breadth of talent. Also, the Stark trilogy is heavily into the world of art and art theft as well as a series of books (like Sherlock Holmes vs. Professor Moriarty) with a continuing struggle between two characters (Stark and Parducci). Muller slowly and teasingly provides detail after detail to fill in the prior relationship between the two characters--considerably enlivening the tales. Enjoy!

Marcia Muller is the award-winning writer of the Sharon McCone mysteries. She was a pioneer writer of private eye stories featuring a female protagonist: the first McCone detective novel EDWIN IN THE IRON SHOES was published in 1977. In 2005 she received the most prestigious award granted in her genre: the Grand Master Award from Mystery Writers of America.

In the late 1980's, Muller wrote a trilogy of art theft mystery novels. THE CAVALIER IN WHITE (1986) is the first Joanna Stark mystery. Joanna Stark is an art security consultant with a San Francisco firm. At the time of the story, she has retired from the firm and is living in the California wine country town of Sonoma restoring an old farmhouse that she and her late husband had inherited. Her former business partner entreats her to return to San Francisco to help investigate the theft of a Frans Hals painting, The Cavalier in White, from the M. H. de Young Museum.

Working with the insurance adjuster and her former partner, Joanna helps recover the painting. She also renews an interest in an old nemesis - Italian art thief Antony Parducci.

Muller knows San Francisco and its art world well: she has a passion for mystery and for old California homes and buildings. Her descriptions of place and the art world are wonderfully detailed. But as Publisher Weekly said of the #2 entry in the series THERE HANGS THE KNIFE, Joanna Stark is a wealthy but unhappy woman who will not appeal to many readers.

For the sheer delight of reading about art theft, may I recommended two books? One is about a valuable painting found - The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece by Jonathan Harr. The other is the true story of the world's largest unsolved art theft - The Gardner Heist by Ulrich Boser.