Edna Silvera is an art historian who appears to prefer her privacy to being in the public eye, even though she is a renowned expert in her field. When sent out by her boss to participate in a public ceremony, she stumbles across a dead body as well as an ancient piece of artwork, and finds herself in the middle of trying to help solve both mysteries.
I read a review copy of this book. It was the author’s first English-translated novel. I did enjoy reading it, though for quite a bit of the book I was confused as to why parts of it were told from the perspective of a chicken. It was quite a while into the story before I realized that said chicken was actually someone who seemed to spend most of his time pretending he was a chicken. (At least I think he was pretending, though it is possible that he actually believed he was a chicken.)
The author clearly knows quite a bit about ancient art, the techniques involved in creating the paints, and the symbolism used within the artwork itself. It was a rather impressive display of knowledge, and an integral part in solving the secondary mystery as well as the murder itself. There were a number of twists and turns in this story that led up to both the art mystery and the murder, and this was a story that I was not able to solve entirely on my own while reading the story. While all the clues were there, some of them were subtle enough that I missed seeing them. And that makes it much more interesting to me than a mystery that I was able to see what was coming well before the ending.
I will admit that at times, I was a little confused and a bit overwhelmed by the amount of art history knowledge within this story, but overall I did find it to be an interesting book that I did enjoy reading. I think that anyone who enjoys reading about art, art history, art symbolism or murder mysteries involving ancient art, would enjoy reading this book.
Amazon requires me to state that I have an Amazon Associates account that I use to generate the links to the books on their website. Purchasing something after following those links will earn a few pennies for me off the sale, though as of yet I have not earned anything from my Amazon Associate links.
No comments:
Post a Comment