Jonathan Santlofer, The Killing Art

The Killing Art

Jonathan Santlofer

Morrow, Oct 2005, $24.95, 352 pp.

ISBN 0060541075

Former NYPD detective Kate McKinnon quit the force after her husband was murdered to become an art historian. She was drawn back into police work when art and murder intersected in the cases of the DEATH ARTIST and the COLOR BLIND. Now she is writing a book about the New York School of abstract impressionists of the 1930's and 1940's like Phillip Zander.

One of the paintings Kate donated to the Modernist Museum was slashed beyond repair and she later finds out that a Jackson Pollack painting was defaced in the sane manner a few weeks earlier. The same person ruins a Kline painting at the home of Kate's friends the Starnetts and kills the male member of the twosome. Kate is once again drawn into a murder case. The killer strikes three more times leaving a clue each time. Even when various police departments and the FBI finally believe they know who the killer was after he died in a shoot out, Kate is convinced that the person was not a murderer just a thief and con man. Acting on a hunch, she enters a scenario where innocent people could die.

Jonathan Santlofer has written an exciting crime thriller that focuses on the cliques, petty jealousies and the competition for attention that is prevalent in the art world. The small paintings that contain the clue the killer sends to the victims are placed in various chapters in the book giving the plot an artsy feel and makes the reader feel that they are part of the investigation. The protagonist is a strong woman still recovering from the death of her husband but is determined to make a new life for herself. Readers will eagerly await her next adventure.

Harriet Klausner