Framed

While Framed by Tonino Benacquista doesn't follow a detective, its protagonist is definitely hard-boiled. Antoine is a victim of a heinous beating in an art gallery who takes it upon himself to avenge the assault, which left him severely maimed and unable to continue his career as a professional pool player. Set in Paris, the mystery unfolds around an unusual painting whose exposure to the public sets off a spree of robbery and murder. Unfortunately Antoine, a picture hanger by day, has the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, thrusting him smack into the middle of a crime he could care less about, stealing art. This is crime fiction at its most satirical, Benacquista describes in detail the frustrations of a young man left unwhole while still seeing the humor in his situation. The various characters Antoine meets as he prowls the art world are classic design/art snobs and the people who write about them--very funny. I also enjoyed Antoine's desperate attempts to write his parents to inform them of his accident, and his final plea to his pool hall buddies to believe that he is not a murderer. While Framed isn't part of a series, I loved Benacquista's writing style; it's funny but gruesome, and equally gritty while describing both the high and low class worlds Antoine inhabits. It's easy to get right into this book and keep going until you realize you've finished it in a matter of hours! Great read!

Framed, the third novel in translation from French crime and film writer Tonino Benacquista, fulfills the promise of his first novel, Holy Smoke, much more than the second novel, Someone Else. But Framed is very different from Holy Smoke (and from the Highsmith-y Someone Else). If you want the further adventures of the comic hero of Holy Smoke, in English, you'll have to go to a film from a couple of years ago, Love Bites. In Framed, Antoine keeps his day job, as an art handler in a contemporary art gallery, and his night passion, for billiards, completely separate--his friends in one world know nothing of the other world. Unlike the choice that a classic noir writer would surely have made, most of the novel focuses on the day world (dark though it indeed is) rather than the billiard hall. The choice is telling: Benacquista lets us know that he knows where his tale would traditionally be told, and indeed comes back to that world for his denoument; but he shifts the focus into a new realm for noir, fully and realistically rendered (if quite cynically portrayed). Framed is a short and fast novel, a fun read, and highly recommended.

Tonino Benacquista's new mystery novel Framed is the riveting story of Antoine, a daytime picture hanger for some of Paris' most fashionable and renounced art galleries, and his pursuit of an art-thief who had attacked him in one of the more fashionable art galleries in the City of Lights. Brilliantly carrying readers through a fascinating tale of mystery and intrigue with an engaging and often humorous narrative of Antoine's amateur investigation, Framed follows his life as two people are found dead in the course of his investigation with one of the deceased having been a prime suspect! Introducing the reader to a world of art fraud and avarice, Framed is very strongly recommended as thoroughly entertaining, darkly humorous, deliberately iconoclastic, and simply brilliantly from beginning to end.

In Paris, Antoine Andrieux's passion is playing billiards; he loves the strategy needed to be victorious in the game and plays every evening at the top parlors. To afford his nightly habit, Antoine hangs paintings especially for special showings at the most exclusive galleries in the city. His patrons consider him an artist of sorts; so does his billiards rivals. Currently he is working on a retrospective of the abstractionist Etienne Morand, who always used black except for his last known work, Attempt 30, which is golden yellow. The day after the opening, Antoine arrives at the gallery to make subtle corrections to the display only to find someone in attendance vandalizing a painting. Antoine tries to stop the intruder, but his adversary topples a sculpture destroying his hand and ultimately his sense of worth as he can no longer hang painting and emotionally worse play billiards. Vowing to find his enemy and take appropriate revenge, Antoine begins an investigation only to find the refine art world is outside his understanding even as he becomes FRAMED as the prime suspect in a homicide. On the surface this translation of a French Noir uses typical throwaway gimmicks like phone tips, but those actually serve as satirical devices that enhance this dark amusing crime caper by comparing felonies (including murder) to artistry. Antoine is a terrific protagonist whose obsession with billiards becomes a compassionate fixation to avenge all that he lost by being a loyal employee. Through his works the obscure Morand comes to life leading even deeper into the delightful comedic comparison between art and crime. HOLY SMOKE, Tonino Benacquista artistically paints a humorous winner. Harriet Klausner