The Genius
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
“A MASTERFUL PLOT AND DEAD-ON PACING.”—Entertainment Weekly
“From its first hip, cynical, snarky, confessional pages, this deftly plotted novel rivets the reader…a must buy.”—Booklist
In a decaying New York slum, a tenant named Victor Cracke has disappeared, leaving behind countless cardboard boxes of strange, original artwork. Gallery owner Ethan Muller can see their brilliance—and their moneymaking potential. Strictly speaking, the drawings don’t belong to Ethan. But great art demands an audience, and before long Ethan’s wildly successful show is being covered by the Times…where it attracts the attention of the police. Because the subjects of the pictures look exactly like the victims in a long-cold murder case. Ethan has received a letter saying stop stop stop. And the still-missing genius may be the link to a madman—or the madman himself…
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Greed gets Ethan Muller, a 33-year-old Manhattan art dealer, into hot water in Kellerman's superb third stand-alone thriller (after Trouble). When reclusive artist Victor Cracke disappears, Muller winds up taking possession of the boxes and boxes of intense, disturbing drawings that Cracke left behind in his shabby Queens apartment. A favorable New York Times article helps fuel lucrative sales at an exhibit of Cracke's drawings at Muller's Chelsea gallery. Soon, though, Muller starts to receive cryptic, vaguely threatening letters. He also hears from a retired NYPD detective, Lee McGrath, who recognizes the face of one of the boys in a Cracke drawing as belonging to the victim of a 40-year-old unsolved murder. That revelation turns Muller into an amateur detective as he attempts to discover how the dead boy's image along with those of several other victims made its way into the pictures. Kellerman has a gift for creating compelling characters as well as for crafting an ingenious plot that grabs the reader and refuses to let go. Author tour.
