Lesson In Red
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4.5 • 15 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A companion to Still Lives--a Reese's Book Club x Hello Sunshine selection--this savvy thriller exposes dark questions about power and the art world and reveals the fatal mistakes that can befall those who threaten its status quo.
Brenae Brasil is a rising star at Los Angeles Art College, the most prestigious art school in the country, and her path to art world celebrity is all but assured. Until she is found dead on campus, just after completing a provocative documentary about female bodies, coercion, and self-defense.
Maggie Richter's return to L.A. and her job at the Rocque Museum was supposed to be about restarting her career and reconnecting with old friends. With mounting pressure to keep the museum open, the last thing she needs is to find herself at the center of another art world mystery. But when she uncovers a number of cryptic clues in Brasil’s video art, Maggie is suddenly caught up in the shadowy art world of Los Angeles, playing a very dangerous game with some very influential people. And the closer she gets to the truth, the more lies she threatens to expose.
Maria Hummel, praised for her "genius for layering levels of meaning" (BBC), has brought us back to her provocative noir Los Angeles with this haunting investigation into power and the art world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Early in Hummel's overly earnest sequel to 2018's Still Lives, budding journalist Maggie Richter returns to L.A., where her former employer, Janis Rocque, founder and chief donor of the Rocque Museum, has an assignment for her. A few months earlier, 22-year-old Brenae Brasil, a student at Los Angeles Art College and a rising star in the video-art world with "a talent for controversy," fatally shot herself in her studio. Janis tells Maggie that "something systemic is wrong" with the school, and it led to Brenae's suicide. Janis arranges for Maggie to go undercover at a gallery where an installation by the LAAC director, a conceptual artist, is being set up by four of his students. She's to report her findings to a private eye. Rather than present a mystery with moral underpinnings, the author uses Maggie's investigations to deliver a righteous message about vulnerable women and the commodification of contemporary art, and she tries too hard to connect everything with what happened in Still Lives. Those invested in Maggie from her first outing will best appreciate this follow-up.
Customer Reviews
Lessons in Red
Loved this so much! Even better than the first one in the Still Lives series. Maggie is a strong heroine who feels real and relatable. Hoping we get another book or two in this series.
Decent sequel
There is much to enjoy in this novel - I enjoyed the continuance from the first book, and the revisit of the characters. I liked the setting, and the details of the art world, how it functions, and the effect it has on the storyline and relationships. I had hoped to learn more about the characters, but it was a birds eye view and unsatisfying. I didn’t buy Maggie’s involvement in this second mystery, or the police needing her involvement; and it was three chapters too long. I wish the author had dropped the love interest storyline, it takes time away from learning about the other characters. Overall, a shallow but decent read.