Customer Reviews

The Many Indiscretions of Arty Boyle: a novel

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THE MANY INDISCRETIONS OF ARTY BOYLE is a quite long first novel by Gerard Shirar whose background is in Museum Security, the military, and law. The marriage of these aspects provide Shirar with an informed matrix on which to build a story of suspense and fascinating exploration of a new aspect of crime - 'new' to literature perhaps - art theft. The problem with this highly detailed, well-researched treatise on the dastardly deeds of the art world not well known public is that that facts get in the way of the story.

Arty (unfortunate nickname for a book about an art criminal!) Boyle is a strange bird. He is bright, dallies in art while at the same time plays in a pop band (the reason for inserting this unrelated subplot remains unanswered by the storyline), wily, plays on both sides of the fence of high society of art collectors and smarmy criminals with whom he works closely as architect for his criminal schemes, and develops schemes of art theft and forgery and other aspects of the chess game of high crime, baffling the FBI - most especially an inspector Latimer who becomes his nemesis. Arty is a mastermind who will stop at nothing to avoid the penalties of his highly organized criminal schemes (which include murders) until one of his many indiscretions 'prints' his exodus.

The story behind this novel is solid: think 'The Thomas Crown Affair' without the sexual intrigue. While Shirar gives evidence here of a fine writer in the making, the novel takes patience on the part of the reader to wade through the excessive details of security investigation techniques, museum management, intricacies of art theft and resolution including forgeries. And the old problem of editorial missteps in allowing grammatical and spelling flaws (especially in the names of the famous artists who serve as background references for the novel) also slows the conscientious reader's eye.

But given all of that, THE MANY INDISCRETIONS OF ARTY BOYLE is a solid start for an obviously skilled author. Advice? Give us some short stories or short novel that concentrate more on characters than tangential paraphernalia. Grady Harp, December 06