The Art of Violence
A Lydia Chin/Bill Smith Novel
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3.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
In the latest mystery from S. J. Rozan, Bill Smith and Lydia Chin must track down a serial killer stalking women in New York's contemporary art scene.
Former client Sam Tabor, just out of Greenhaven after a five-year homicide stint, comes to Bill Smith with a strange request. A colossally talented painter whose parole was orchestrated by art world movers and shakers, Sam's convinced that since he's been out he's killed two women. He doesn't remember the killings but he wants Smith, one of the few people he trusts, to investigate and prove him either innocent or guilty.
NYPD detective Angela Grimaldi thinks Sam's "a weirdo." Smith has no argument with that: diagnosed with a number of mental disorders over the years, Sam self-medicates with alcohol, loses focus (except when he's painting), and has few friends. But Smith doesn't think that adds up to serial killer. He enlists Lydia Chin to help prove it.
Smith and Chin delve into the world surrounding Sam Tabor, including his brother, two NYPD detectives, and various other artists, dealers, collectors, curators, and art connoisseurs. No answers appear. Evidence is found and lost again. And more bodies turn up.
Sam Tabor might be just a crazy artist. But someone is killing people in his orbit. If not Sam, who? Why? And who will be next?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Edgar winner Rozan brilliantly inverts a whodunit trope in her outstanding 13th mystery featuring New York City PIs Lydia Chin and Bill Smith (after 2019's Paper Son): instead of seeking exoneration, a convicted killer seeks to be proven guilty. Six years earlier, Bill was on Sam Tabor's defense team after Sam was charged with murdering Amy Evans, whom he'd stabbed to death at a party after drinking some punch laced with PCP. Sam, who had no previous history of violence, rejected an insanity defense, and accepted a plea deal. But Sam's 15-to-life sentence was curtailed after a successful campaign for his release spearheaded by activists who believed that his artistic gifts, discovered during his imprisonment, merited clemency. Now, after two women who resemble Evans are fatally stabbed in the city, Sam feels that he's once again responsible, and beseeches Bill to prove his guilt. Bill isn't sure what to believe, and aided by Lydia navigates a twisted path to the truth. As always, Rozan's intelligent, witty prose is a treat, and she justifies a choice made in the previous book regarding the relationship between her two leads. Newcomers as well as devotees will be enthralled.
