The Immaculate Deception [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Iain M. Pears (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2001

New art-history mystery from the acclaimed author of the best-selling literary masterpiece An Instance of the Fingerpost. 'Superior entertainment' Allan Massie, Scotsman When an important, politically sensitive painting is kidnapped in Rome, Flavia di Stefano, acting head of the Italian Art Theft Squad, is told to get it back at all costs -- without causing any embarrassment to the country and without paying the ransom. Put in an impossible position, she turns for help to her old mentor General Taddeo Bottando, who casts a wholly unexpected light on the crime. In the meantime, her husband, English art historian Jonathan Argyll, embarks on an investigation of his own. As a gift to Bottando, he decides to establish the provenance of a small Renaissance painting, an Immaculate Conception, currently hanging on the wall of the general's apartment. Absorbing and ingeniously plotted, The Immaculate Deception is both a fascinating art-history puzzle and a gripping murder mystery as the search for the truth uncovers shocking secrets from the past and leads Argyll and Flavia into the path of some very dangerous enemies indeed.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Jonathan Argyll, accompanied by his new wife, Flavia di Stefano, makes his seventh appearance in this confusing case of a stolen painting, murder and intrigue, following 1998's well-received An Instance of the Fingerpost. Antonio Sabauda, the Italian prime minister, asks Flavia, now acting head of the national art squad, to recover Claude Lorraine's Landscape with Cephalis and Procris, stolen from an Italian museum while on loan from the Louvre. Flavia, however, must not use public money for the requested ransom. As Flavia's former boss, Gen. Taddeo Bottando, has told her, "Prime ministers? Oh, they can ruin your life." She finds this is true on many levels. Meanwhile, Argyll, the art expert, is snooping into the provenance of a small painting owned by Bottando. Soon Argyll and Flavia find that almost everyone they talk to in their respective investigations has a hidden agenda. Who is behind all the shady goings-on in the art world? Is it Prime Minister Sabauda, General Bottando or another person with something to protect? Ultimately, as people's motives become clearer and one corpse after another turns up, Argyll and Flavia find that they have to make some very disturbing choices involving their own sense of morality. A personal secret that Flavia harbors until the end adds some intrigue. While the author nicely portrays the Italian art world, readers looking for a scintillating mystery will have to seek elsewhere.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

The success of Pears' majesterial literary thriller An Instance of the Fingerpost (1998) has brought renewed attention to his outstanding series of art mysteries starring erstwhile art-history professor Jonathan Argyll and his wife, Flavia di Stefano, of the Rome police's art theft squad. This seventh in the series may well be the best yet. Change is in the wind from multiple directions: Jonathan and Flavia, only recently married, are stunned to discover they will soon be parents, and Flavia, acting head of the art squad, learns that her mentor and former boss, General Bottando, will be retiring--and she is by no means a sure thing to succeed him as permanent head of the department. Then the bizarre theft of a painting on loan to Italy from the Louvre leads to a decades-old case of murder and political corruption that further ensnares Flavia in a bureaucratic sinkhole. Meanwhile, Argyll is traipsing about Tuscany, where he stumbles into some remarkable discoveries that seem to link Bottando to the stolen painting. Art-themed mysteries possess natural appeal (stealing a painting is such an irresistibly sophisticated crime), but too often the art-history lessons are unsuccessfully melded to the plot. Not so here, as Pears masterfully incorporates the missing painting's history into the fabric of the story. Best of all, though, is his wonderful grasp of the moral ambiguity at the heart of Italian life. Bottando and Flavia possess that uniquely Italian grasp of the inevitability of corruption, and the English Argyll is catching on quite nicely. The result is a wonderfully appealing cast of characters whose abiding distrust of institutions forms the bedrock of their commitment to each other. Despite their profoundly ironic view of the world, Pears' people are by no means melancholy cynics; rather, they possess a joie de vivre that seems to flow from the startling discovery that, even in a world soiled by universal corruption, on the one hand, and deadly idealism, on the other, it's still possible to look at beautiful pictures or enjoy a delicious lunch. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 324 pages
• Publisher: Thorndike Press (May 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786232579
• ISBN-13: 978-0786232574
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,293,404 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another Great Art Mystery, October 18, 2000

By 

Artbooklover "ML" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Immaculate Deception (Hardcover)

I've read all Iain Pears's Jonathan Argyll art mysteries (although why poor Flavia doesn't get equal billing, I don't know), and I have to say I find them a flat-out delight. Smart, funny, well-written. They're not as profound as, say, his INSTANCE OF THE FINGERPOST (which I rate as 5 stars, so I can't rate this any higher than 4, no disrespect intended), but they're not as long, either. I think the characters, the central character' "real-life" situations, the mysteries (art thefts and murders) are cleverly plotted, the dialogue excellent. I just wish he could write books as fast as I can read them.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another Enjoyable Page-Turner from Pears, November 24, 2000

By 

S. Sokoll (Manassas, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Immaculate Deception (Hardcover)

Iain Pears' mystery series is a delight from start to finish. This latest book is no exception with our heroine, Flavia diStefano, fighting her way through the confusion brought about by the theft and ransom of a painting from the local museum. The political ramifications of the recovery of the painting are a maze through which Flavia (with the help of her newly-minted husband, Joanthan Argyll, our hero) must make her way. Complicating the recovery process is the involvement of Flavia's former superior, Taddeo Bottando, and art-thief extraordinaire, Mary Verney.

This book is a delightful addition to the previous entries in this series, although at time the action becomes a little to convoluted for belief. A heartily enjoyable book in a wonderful series. Deduct one star for the small amount of interaction between the main characters (Flavia & Jonathan)- they are a riot when they are detecting together. In this book they spend most of their time jaunting about independently, only meeting up again briefly for the conclusion.

Pears has left himself an opening with the end of this book to either end the series or to proceed with it in a slightly new direction. One can only hope that he is currently working on the next Flavia-Jonathan mystery....

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Easy reading, intelligently written, May 17, 2002

By 

J. Marren "jtm497" (Glen Ridge, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Immaculate Deception (Mass Market Paperback)

There are times when even the most sophisticated readers need a break and want to read what I call an "airplane" book--"beach" book would also be a good description--at the same time it's hard not to get annoyed with poor writing, unbelievable dialogue and dumb plots. If you've had this problem, try Pears' books. This is the first of the series I've read, and found a good plot with an interesting smidgen of art history and modern Italian culture woven in. I had the added bonus of reading it during a flight home from a 2-1/2 week sojourn in Tuscany and Umbria! This book bears no resemblance to "Instance of the Fingerpost," which was a serious literary work; this is for fun!