Lazarus, Arise: A Fred Taylor Art Mystery

Fred Taylor Art Mystery #5

by Nicholas Kilmer

"This is very funny stuff, clever in its details and merciless in its satire... Irreverent . . . witty . . . the erudite but down-to-earth Fred is a treasure." ―New York Times Book Review

Arriving from Paris in Boston's Logan airport, Fred Taylor, agent for eccentric art collector Clayton Reed, unwittingly grabs a smuggled treasure flung into the air by a dying passenger.

Not until much too late does Fred understand that the treasure―a medieval work of art whose subject is Lazarus―is in his hands. And now he must undertake to discover the identity of the work, as well as of its smuggler and its rightful owner. At the same time (for word gets out, and fast) he must fend off the increasingly aggressive attentions of both institutional and private collectors―not least among them his own employer Clayton Reed.

Fred's search leads to an encounter with the life work, and the sudden death, of the self-proclaimed subversive landscape artist Jacob Geist. During five days of golden autumn, the race to identify, and to account for the treasure, takes us back six hundred years, through the blood and torment of this century to the treasure's origin during the Hundred Years War. Throughout we are haunted by the seductive sweetness of the prevailing genius of Jacob Geist.

As usual, Kilmer delights in skewering the pretensions of the art world while constructing a brain teaser.

"Kilmer's artful depiction of local color puts him in a category with the early work of Robert B. Parker, whose quick word pictures of people and places captured New England character." ―Boston Herald

"A deft and compelling use of historical crimes that mirror the felonies in decorous present-day Massachusetts vaults Fred's fourth adventure (Dirty Linen) up into the league of Iain Pears's art-history whodunits." ―Kirkus Reviews

Genres: Mystery

224 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2001

About the author

Teacher of art and Latin in Vienna, VA, 1960-62; Action for Boston Community Development, Boston, MA, writer in department of planning and evaluation, 1966-67; English teacher at private school in Beverly, MA, 1967-70; Swain School of Design, New Bedford, MA, associate professor of liberal arts, 1970-82, dean, 1979-82; affiliated with Art Research of Cambridge, Cambridge, MA, 1984-88; founder of Nicholas Kilmer Fine Art, 1988—. Painter, with exhibitions throughout the Northeast.

Reviews

[Cat. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting mystery about art. The premise is that a guy dies in an airport, but the "hero" picks up his newspaper, which has an unknown vellum masterwork hidden inside. In the midst of trying to figure out if it is what it looks like, where it came from, and why this particular down & very out artist had it in his possession, Fred Taylor discovers that his first impressions of people are sometimes not quite right. Oh, and his "girlfriend" is acting strange. Interesting characters. Maybe a list author.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kilmer's always interesting series about a Boston art collector and his laconic assistant Fred Taylor reaches a new level as Fred accidentally finds a smuggled page from an illuminated manuscript. Determined to find the real owner, Fred moves into the world of art dealers and artists, his usually carefully controlled violence escaping in sudden bursts.

[Alline · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were a couple of really good lines in here - will add later...