The Titian Committee: A Flavia Di Stefano Mystery [Hardcover]

Iain Pears (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1993

Sent to Venice to help solve a murder, Flavia di Stefan of the Rome Art Theft Squad teams up with the local carabinieri to catch the killer. By the author of The Raphael Affair.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This playful satire of the squabbling international art scene and the Italian police bureaucracy reunites volcanic beauty Flavia de Stefano of the Italian National Art Theft Squad, and diffident British art dealer Jonathan Argyll, who first met in The Raphael Affair. Set in Venice and first published by Gollancz in 1991, the tale opens with the murder of American art historian Louise Masterson, a member of the scholarly international Titian Committee, who is found stabbed to death in a bed of lilies at the Giardinetti Reali. Then the elegant, reputedly incorruptible British art collector Tony Roberts drowns in a canal, and French art philosopher Georges Bralle is discovered suffocated in his home in France. Affection blooms between Flavia and Jonathan as they probe current affairs and Titian's paintings for clues to the killings and the answer to a question about the painter's life. Pears, who has a doctorate in art history from Cambridge, writes with a Beerbohm-like wit.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This second title in a series maintains the high standards of the first ( The Raphael Affair , Harcourt, 1992), once again appealing to art history buffs. When a murderer strikes down an American member of the prestigious Titian Committee in Venice, General Taddeo Bottando of Rome's art-theft squad dispatches special assistant Flavia to gather information. What begins as a simple political mission becomes a dangerous quest for a missing portrait attributed to Titian. Enlisting the aid of art dealer Jonathan Argyll, Flavia never hesitates to call a spade a spade, but she tempers her judgment with theory. Most enjoyable.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 189 pages
• Publisher: Harcourt; First American Edition edition (October 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151904723
• ISBN-13: 978-0151904723
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,610,227 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Gee I miss Venice (I read it for the scenery), April 10, 2003

By 

bensmomma "bensmomma" (Ann Arbor, Michigan) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Titian Committee (Art History Mystery) (Mass Market Paperback)

I think I'd read anything set in Italy, and Iain Pears does a wonderful job conveying its charms in this series. This particular book is set in Venice, which is really brought to life (I got rather excited when the body of a victim was found in a canal that was down the street from a hotel where I once stayed.)

This is my first of Pear's 'art history mysteries,' however, and the characters and the plot have yet to grow on me. Flavia diStefano, an Italian detective, is energetically drawn, but Jonathan Argyll, the art expert who tags along with her, is an enigma. Perhaps he is more colorful in other stories in this series. The plot is pretty tortured and difficult to retain if you are not an art history export. There is rather a lot of detail conveyed third-hand (scenes in which two characters sit in a cafe talking about what a third character said to a fourth character).

Nevertheless, every time I want a 'hit' of Italy, I'm likely to go back to this series for a quick fix!

18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Don't Drink the Water, September 10, 2003

By 

sweetmolly (RICHMOND, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Titian Committee (Art History Mystery) (Mass Market Paperback)

Don't Drink the Water

An Ian Pears' view of ever-romantic Venice never lets readers forget they are in a watery wasteland. However appealing visually, the downside is very dirty water, water everywhere. You can't get "there" from "here" without crossing the canals, and God forbid you should ever, ever fall in!
The protagonists fall in the canals, suffer from seasickness, and root around in sub-basements never meant to be seen by the tourists.

The plot is secondary to the fun and the easy-to-digest art history that author Pears provides. Gorgeous, volatile Flavia and diffident Jonathan (think Hugh Grant) team up to investigate the endangered members of the prestigious Titian Committee, who are being picked off one-by-one. Their directive is to bring the investigation to a speedy, expedient closure that will make the various Italian bureaucracies look good. Solving the crime is secondary. As Flavia's marvelous superior General Bottando informs her when she triumphantly states she has found another body in France, "But you're not meant to be finding more," he said grumpily, "You're meant to be dealing with the more than adequate supply we have already."

It is hard to pigeonhole Pears' Art Mysteries as to type. The satire is good humored, but nevertheless has a bite. The protagonists are made far too uncomfortable and the action too graphic to be a "cozy," and the lack of dedication to task make it impossible to label the stories "hard boiled." If you adore things Italian and have more than a passing interest in art history, I highly recommend this series.
-sweetmolly-Amazon Reviewer

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Titian Committee More About Place than Plot, March 27, 2002

By 

Juliana LHeureux "Maine Writer" (Topsham, Maine United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Titian Committee (Art History Mystery) (Mass Market Paperback)

Iain Pears lives up to his modern day Agatha Christie title with a particular twist on writing about beautiful places. In fact, great places are the focus of his Art History Mystieries series, like Paris, London, Rome, and lots more of Rome, Los Angeles and other five star places like that. As far as the murder mystery in each book's plot, like "The Titian Committee", the story is as much about Venice (place) and how this high brow Titian committee credentials master works than it is about the dead body discovered in the first chapter. Reading a Pears novel is
worth challenging a few college credits in art history, only tons more fun. Still, even with the "opposites attract" characters of the often morose Jonathon Argyle, who lives up to his very predictable last name, and his risk taking love Gloria Di Stafano, "The Titian Committee" isn't quite as memorable as the other books in this effervecent mystery series. Sometimes, the plot becomes just too cumbersome to make sense. Nevertheless, I wouldn't want to miss reading it, if only to keep up with the lively antics of the hero and heroine- especially, to find out if they ever plan on taking their relationship beyond the Panda bear dance they play out in their comic/drama experiences. Overall, "The Titian Committee" does not stand alone in The Art History Mysteries, but it's a good link with the others. "The Raphael Affair" is still the best in the series with "Death and Restoration" a close second. Of course, it will likely be a long time before another book will compare with the intellectual stimulation of "An Instance of the Fingerpost", a first rate Pears mystery, but not in the line up of the Art History Mysteries series.