Cezanne's Quarry
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
A beautiful young woman is found murdered . . . and the clues to her death point to her spurned lover, Paul Cézanne.
In this richly atmospheric novel, a mysterious young woman named Solange Vernet arrives in Aix-en-Provence with her lover, a Darwinian scholar named Charles Westbury, and a year later is found strangled in a quarry outside the city. The young and inexperienced magistrate, Bernard Martin, finds his investigation caught in the crossfires of a raging cultural debate.
Initially assuming that Solange’s murder was a simple crime de passion by either a jealous Cézanne or a betrayed Westbury, Bernard soon finds himself on a mission to unravel the secrets of Solange and Cezanne’s hidden past. Exploring questions of science and religion that persist even to this day, Cezanne’s Quarry is a provocative debut mystery about life, death, love, and art.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Could Paul C zanne be a killer? That's one of the disturbing prospects confronting novice magistrate Bernard Martin in August 1885 as he starts to investigate the murder of Solange Vernet, a recent transplant from Paris whose brutalized remains are discovered near a favorite haunt of the painter's outside Aix, in Pope's provocative debut. Was the freethinking beauty with the flame-colored locks slain by her lover, self-professed Darwinian scholar and likely scam artist Charles Westerbury, as Martin's boss contends, or by a smitten C zanne? Martin quickly recognizes that the case could be a career maker or breaker if he antagonizes the artist's powerful family without overwhelming evidence. Pope animates her canvas with plenty of vivid period detail, but subplots, romantic and otherwise, dilute the suspense; later she telegraphs what should have been a surprise ending. Still, Francophiles and history buffs will find much to like.
