Painting in the Dark

This book is witty, hard to put down, the characters are exquisitely developed, and the prose is sublime. It is a work of art. The final twist was unexpected (for me, anyway); if you enjoy thrillers and suspense, this is an exceptional experience cover to cover. Well done, Mr. Russell!!

"Painting in the Dark," a very dark (a Roman noir) murder mystery about two aristocratic sisters who had been Nazi sympathizers and friends of the "high Nazi echelons," including you know who, during his rise to power. At least, this is the core of the plot. Russell James has written a very intriguing mystery in which evil truly does become personified. This riviting story line usitlizes more threads that Clothos could contrive, but while it may bounce back and forth from one character to another, from one time period to another, it still contains a cohesion that is not difficult to admire.For readers who have trouble reading stories of people who are truly evil, perhaps this one should not be undertaken. James' evil and demented characters puts him on a par with Patricia Highsmith. The P.D. James, Martha Grimes, Donna Leon, Ruth Rendell police prodecurals feature super detective superintendents and each exhhibits murderers par excellence, still they don't seem to espouse this evilness in the characters that Russell James does here. This is not to say that his characters and plot are not of excellent worth: they are. James has presented us with some very, very bad characters; in fact, not any of the characters in the whole book have more "good" characteristics than they have "bad" ones. An interesting turn for a novelist to post. And, certainly, his characters are none whom I would want to meet even in a brightly lit alley! In addition, through the two sisters, James presents "the other side" of the Nazis without the book being a political statement. It is very well written and has a few really clever and witty passages and references-affording some necessary comic relief in such a depressing tale. The cleverness of the pun in the title serves as an example of this. (...)