Caravaggio's Angel

Ruth Brandon's CARAVAGGIO'S ANGEL is the first in a series featuring Reggie (Regina) Lee, a curator at the National Gallery in London. Reggie is new to the National Gallery and she wants to make her mark by organizing an exhibition of the three paintings of "St. Cecilia and the Angel" by Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio from the town in which he was born. One of the paintings is owned by the Louvre and another is at the Getty Museum. Reggie believes she can locate the third, believed to be held privately. Reggie's planned exhibition is, at first, met with cooperation and enthusiasm. The Louvre and the Getty agree to loan their paintings until, suddenly and without explanation, the directors of the Louvre withdraw their permission. Reggie travels to Paris, determined that the exhibit will go on. Complications include events during the occupation of France during WWII, a suicide, a present-day political campaign, a few murders, and a fourth painting that signals that one of the known paintings is a fake. The author has provided a considerable amount of information about the techniques used by art historians which I found very interesting. The conclusion is unexpected. The details of "St Cecilia and the Angel" seem to refer to a painting attributed to Carlo Saracini, a contemporary of Caravaggio.

This is one of the finest mysteries, or book in any genre, that I've read in a long, long time. Characters are well developed, engaging and intelligent as well as clever and the plot is not only believable but intricate and carefully worked out. I read British mysteries almost non stop and predict that Ruth Brandon will shortly achieve a place right up there with the best writers (maybe even the golden era stars such as Dorothy Sayers, Michael Innes, and Edmund Crispin) of today -- the likes of PD James, Robert Barnard, Peter Lovesey . I particularly liked this because it is edgy without being noir and doesn't involve some grisly topic like serial killers/child molesters/burned out squats/masochistic drug dealers and similar.

Brandon is a new name to me, but having read the first Reggie Lee mystery, "Caravaggio's Angel" I will be back for more. It's especially nice to read an 'amateur sleuth' mystery in which the sleuthing believably derives from the main character's work and there is no copper involved. The book has a brisk, no nonsense quality yet the telling is flavored with the human qualities that make a story worth reading - career, politics, sex, human misbehavior, and in this series' case, art-ful crime. The settings are sophisticated, the atmosphere intelligent, the writing fluid, and the plot fast-moving. I was surprised several times and liked the structure of the ending.

The Director of the London National Gallery approves art historian Reggie Lee's concept to display three "original" works of artist Caravaggio, who created in 1605 the altarpiece St. Cecilia and the Angel and subsequently made two copies. She knows that the Getty and the Louvre each have one and assumes it should prove no problem to find the third. Shockingly, Louvre Italian masterpiece administrator Antoine Rigaut refuses to loan the museum's copy. Since lending is a normal practice, Reggie goes to Paris to plead her case in person with Rigaut. However, he avoids her like she has the plague until he is found dead, an apparent suicide. Reggie is further stunned when a seemingly fourth copy surfaces. This makes her believe one of the originals is a fake; perhaps created in 1937 when the Louvre copy was recovered after being stolen. When the English expert meets Rigaut's mother, she begins to learn the true early twentieth century history of St. Cecilia and the Angel. CARAVAGGIO'S ANGEL is an excellent art mystery starring a likable protagonist who goes from art historian to amateur sleuth in her efforts to learn the truth. The story line is fast-paced with the historical aspects adding a terrific taste of the early seventeenth century art world and the not so rare museum thefts of the early twentieth century from a modern perspective. Ruth Brandon provides a wonderful thriller that hopefully will lead to more blending of masterpieces with mysteries. Harriet Klausner