Peter Carey Theft

Theft

Peter Carey

Knopf, May 2006, $24.00

ISBN 0307263711

Talented Australian painter Butcher Boone is known for his work as much as for his hedonistic overindulgences especially alcohol and fighting. Unable to put up with his destructive behavior, his wife divorced him and left him broke, homeless, and without visiting rights to see their son. The darling of Sydney high society Butcher has been relegated to work as a caretaker at the New South Wales estate of a major collector of his paintings and raising his damaged sibling Hugh since their parents died.

During a particularly stormy night, classy Marlene Leibovitz arrives at Butcher's abode totally lost. She informs him that she is the daughter in law to Jacques Leibovitz, a twentieth-century master. Unable to toss her out in the torrential storm, Butcher and Hugh soon become part of an international grand art crime scheme involving forgeries and murder because the Australian artist can not resist the sexual siren of the woman who came soaked to his door.

THEFT is a fantastic character driven suspense thriller that grips the audience from the moment Marlene arrives at the New South Wales house as she is obviously high society Sydney not backwater isolation. Unable to resist the lure of this femme fatale, Butcher begins a further spiral downward. Mindful of the 1930s McMurray-Streisand films like Double Indemnity, fans will appreciate this "love story" masterpiece.

Harriet Klausner