Still Lives
A Novel
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3.6 • 135 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Twelve shocking paintings. Eleven famous murders. One missing artist . . . and one woman driven to find her—this Reese's Book Club x Hello Sunshine Selection is a “stunning achievement” (Los Angeles Times).
Kim Lord is an avant–garde figure, feminist icon, and agent provocateur in the L.A. art scene. Her groundbreaking new exhibition Still Lives is comprised of self–portraits depicting herself as famous, murdered women―the Black Dahlia, Chandra Levy, Nicole Brown Simpson, among many others―and the works are as compelling as they are disturbing, implicating a culture that is too accustomed to violence against women.
As the city’s richest art patrons pour into the Rocque Museum’s opening night, all the staff, including editor Maggie Richter, hope the event will be enough to save the historic institution’s flailing finances.
Except Kim Lord never shows up to her own gala.
Fear mounts as the hours and days drag on and Lord remains missing. Suspicion falls on the up–and–coming gallerist Greg Shaw Ferguson, who happens to be Maggie’s ex. A rogue’s gallery of eccentric art world figures could also have motive for the act, and as Maggie gets drawn into her own investigation of Lord’s disappearance, she’ll come to suspect all of those closest to her.
Set against a culture that often fetishizes violence, Still Lives is a page–turning exodus into the art world’s hall of mirrors, and one woman’s journey into the belly of an industry flooded with money and secrets.
“It’s a thrilling mystery that will leave you wondering which characters you can and can’t trust . . . There’s a twist at the end that still keeps us up at night, it's THAT good.” —Reese Witherspoon (A Reese’s Book Club x Hello Sunshine Selection)
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Take the stylish chills of classic noir and mix them with the flashy world of high art, and you get an excellent, creepy mystery. Edgy painter Kim Lord is an art-world darling, known for controversial self-portraits in which she plays women from notorious murder cases, like the “Black Dahlia.” When Kim suddenly goes missing, low-level museum worker Maggie Richter is tapped to find her—and comes face to face with dirty secrets lurking under the shiny veneer of the sophisticated arts community. We loved watching Maggie draw on her professional knowledge and her own experiences during this high-profile investigation. The gritty tension juxtaposes smartly with Maria Hummel’s clever observations about the high-art world. Smart, suspenseful, and featuring a strong feminist undercurrent, Still Lives is a brilliant mystery…even if you don’t know the first thing about museum openings.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
When artist Kim Lord fails to show up at Los Angeles's Rocque Museum for the gala opening of her show of self-portraits in the guises of famous murdered women such as Nicole Brown Simpson, museum staff editor Maggie Richter, the narrator of this exceptional suspense novel from Hummel (Motherland), gets involved in the subsequent investigation, in which Kim's boyfriend, gallerist Greg Shaw Ferguson Maggie's ex becomes the primary suspect in her disappearance. In her quest for the truth, Maggie must navigate the social and emotional edges of her own relationships, unsure of whom to trust. The careful characterizations of the players in the Rocque's sphere of influence mean that, as the mystery unfolds to reveal them as suspects or victims, the reader feels deep empathy that comes from perceiving them as real people, not plot devices. Hummel builds visceral intimacy around "women's oppressive anxiety about ultimate vulnerability" in this often uncomfortable tale about the media's fetishistic fascination with the violent murders of beautiful women.
Customer Reviews
Female detective solves the crime before LAPD
The female lead is thrown into the role of detective. Along the way she needs to learn things about herself and how much she doesn't know about her closest friends, who are almost exclusively co-workers.
The story revolves around a woman artist who is known for shocking depictions of other women. The title is a pun on the art style of still lives which was considered an appropriate subject for women artists. The most recent art exhibit of a famous artist is about gruesomely murdered women and seems to vacillate between a women's powerlessness in our modern world and the barbarity of the male killers.
Perhaps because it is a detective story, there is a build-up of character backstory, and you are left with perhaps more fully developed side characters than usual. Since the story is told in the first-person point of view manner, the person telling the story is also learning more, perhaps too much, about her friends and co-workers.
I do appreciate the descriptive language used by the author and whether it is from writing or editing, the story is a pleasure to read.
Highly recommend
Excellent!
Very slow
I had high hopes for this book since it was listed as a favorite by Reese Witherspoon, but I found it painfully slow going. Several times I considered quitting, but eventually completed the book. I think my reason for this rating, is because typically in a book, you have the perspective/ dialog of the killer and or the victim “ real time during the reading of the book. In this case someone is missing, and toward the end you learn what happened, but everything in between, is boring.