Still as Death
Sarah Stewart Taylor
St. Martin's, Sep 2006, $24.95
ISBN: 0312337426

Professor Sweeney St. George is putting together an exhibit at the university's Hapner Museum of Art, "Still as Death: The Art of the End of Life". However, the Harvard University art history professor realizes as she catalogues the display that a priceless Egyptian funerary jewelry collar is missing. Making inquiries she learns that the last person known to have had the artifact was back in 1979, student intern Karen Philips who apparently committed suicide soon afterward.

Sweeney continues preparation for the show, but also digs deeper into the Philips affair. She finds out that Karen was working at the Hapner the night it was robbed in 1979 and other tidbits that fail to add up. However, her fascination with a mystery over twenty-five years old changes to a modern murder mystery when someone kills Olga, working on the exhibit. Cambridge Police Department Detective Tim Quinn looks at the Art Department for a suspect while Sweeney begins to tie the current homicide back to the 1979 tragedy.

STILL AS DEATH is an enjoyable entry to a fine series in which the heroine in between getting the exhibit ready investigates the 1979 events for about half the story line before the plot takes a left turn into a modern day murder in which Tim joins Sweeney on center stage. Sweeny is as always irreverent when it comes to death while her colleagues are a bit more stunned especially when Tim looks at them for the culprit. Fans of the series and newcomers (see JUDGMENT OF THE GRAVE, MANSIONS OF THE DEAD and O'ARTFUL DEATH) will enjoy everyone's favorite gravestone expert as she adapts to solving a modern day art of death homicide.

Harriet Klausner