Customer Reviews

The Da Vinci Deception: A Novel of Suspense

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book has silly mistakes of reference, stodgy exposition about the art that reads like it was intended for a textbook, and a pretty predictable plot. It's a police procedural (not a mystery) and the procedure is generally ok, but none of the characters is well developed. It's passingly interesting for an airplane, but not much more. Try Instance of the Finger Post instead.

This is the second Thomas Swan novel taking place in the art world. A set of theives set up a complex deception involving Leonardo Da Vinci, as the title implies. Jack Oxby is not very prominent in this book, but other characters move the book along. The chapters are short, which keeps you moving. I found it difficult to put down. I disagree with the review here stating that character developement is weak; I have a feel for each one of them. Surprises abound and it is a good view into the art world; as someone who works in it, it is not nearly as idealized as the museums would make you think! Good job Mr. Swan...please send us more!

While the plot is interesting, the writing is weak and the character development limited. The author tries to keep us entertained by moving the characters from New York to London to Lake Como, but the interesting travels don't replace good character development. A fun read...that's about it.

This is the second Thomas Swan novel taking place in the art world. A set of theives set up a complex deception involving Leonardo Da Vinci, as the title implies. Jack Oxby is not very prominent in this book, but other characters move the book along. The chapters are short, which keeps you moving. I found it difficult to put down. I disagree with the review here stating that character developement is weak; I have a feel for each one of them. Surprises abound and it is a good view into the art world; as someone who works in it, it is not nearly as idealized as the museums would make you think! Good job Mr. Swan...please send us more!

Like others, I looked forward to this book when I picked it up for free. The cover notes make it sound interesting in the art crime kind of way. However, the writing is so painfully bad that after a while it just became hilarious. Whoever gave Mr. Swan a contract to publish this drek should have been fired! I give it a one-star rating only because they won't let you give zero stars.

Outside of the negligible character development mentioned by another reviewer, the fact is that nothing really happens in the book, and what does happen is so unbelieveable that you throw your hands up and laugh every other page. It's also crammed with so many factual errors that you wonder if the author ever bothered to check anything he wrote. The British police superintendent keeps telling everyone he's from the Windsor Police, which actually doesn't exist; the author writes about a character with a Walther PPKS and repeatedly calls this gun a revolver, which it isn't; he repeatedly throws in utterly extraneous and irrelevant information deisgned, I think, to show his mastery of the subject but which only serves to show he did some very cursory Internet research; his descriptions of routes in and around London and Florence are made up entirely from having a road map in front of him; the author refers to Milan's airport variously as Malpenza, Melpenza, and Malpensa in the space of a few pages; he has the Chief of Detectives of NYPD personally investigating a relatively minor aspect of the case (come on!). This is billed as an "Inspector Jack Oxby Novel', although that character only appears in the book peripherally on a couple of occasions and has absolutely nothing to do with the story. At one point the author writes that a character "spoke quickly..." then in the next sentence he describes how the listener to this conversation was disturbed by how slowly the charcter was speaking! The entire book is replete with this kind of drivel and I reached the point where I no longer cared about the plot but only looked forward to the gales of laughter that each error brought on.

If Mr. Swan tries to write more books I hope to god somebody stops him!

I have to say I actually enjoyed this book. Multi millionaire, Jonas Kalem puts together an art fraud team to try to create an authentic-looking Da Vinci sketch of the Mona Lisa. There's lots of action, a few twists and turns and some great settings.

I do admit the author got a few facts wrong, but the story itself is interesting enough to forgive him for that. This is FICTION, people. An author is free to create his own world as he sees it.

This is a fun read and I found myself really rooting for a couple of the members of the gang--totally innocent Eleanor Shepard and the paroled counterfeither, Curtis Stiehl; as well as the main detective, Walter Deats. Won't spoil it by telling you why. I do agree it shouldn't be called a "Jack Oxby" novel. He only makes a couple of apperances in the whole thing. And it's not really a mystery since we're informed of everything as we go along. It was much more about Walter Deats and I rather liked him. A very sympathetic character. Would rather read more about him than the rather flamboyant Oxby.

This is Thomas Swan's inaugural art crime and introduces Jack Oxby from Scotland Yard's Art & Antiques Squad. It is, as was Swan's The Cezanne Chase, a Book of the Month Club Featured Selection. Fran Wood wrote in The Newark Star Ledger, "While Swan provides rather more detail on DaVinci and the mateiral used by the Renaissance artists than most mystery fans will care to wade through, there is plenty of action, and Swan masterfully pulls together the various threads of the adventure in a breakneck climax." Its a great read and highly recommended.

Wow, this book is dreadful. The prose is painfully bad, the dialogue is excruciating, the characterization falls flat, and the plot loses any tenuous claim to credibility unless the reader is willing to assume that each character is stupider than the last.

Occasionally such a book can be rescued by an interesting detective. Alas, I have no idea whether this is one of them; because although this book is billed as an Inspector Jack Oxby novel, when I finally gave up reading on page 300 of a 378-page book, Inspector Oxby had made one brief appearance and garnered two passing references. I assume he actually does take part in the plot at some point, but I can't vouch for it.

The cover blurb says "Fans of Ian Pears' art mysteries will enjoy the lavish detail." Fans of Ian Pears would do well to reread Ian Pears and stay well away from this charmless hash.

Excellent service, prompt delivery, excellent conditon
as described, packaged well.
Would use again.

I loved this book! Great story, great characters, and
the pacing of it just never lets up. Furthermore
it avoids the nauseating politically correct propaganda
junk that mars so many mysteries and action stories
in today's world; ones where women perform feats
of daring physical, psychological, and intellectual stunts
(while the men waffle around like flawed, clueless bozos)
that in real life just don't happen. If you want deep characterizations and
all
that, go back and reread Shakespeare. This book
plays out almost like a very satisfying, high quality movie.
I'd definitely be willing to seek out and read other works by this author in
the
future. Highly recommended.