Masterclass

by Morris L. West

When the daughter of an old Florentine family dies, she leaves a bequest to her lover Max Mather, an American art historian who has been managing the family's rare art collection. Mather is left with two priceless artworks by the great Renaissance master Raphael-without the family's knowledge.As Mather contrives to have the artworks discovered at auction in New York, big-time collectors, dealers and auctioneers are drawn into his game. In trying to out-deal the deal-makers, he becomes embroiled in a tangled web surrounding the brutal murder of a promiscuous Manhattan painter, Madeleine Bayard. The two stories intertwine in this fast-paced tale of intrigue and murder in the international art world.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Crime, Mystery Thriller, Art

360 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Morris Langlo West was born in St Kilda, Melbourne in 1916. At the age of fourteen, he entered the Christian Brothers seminary ‘as a kind of refuge’ from a difficult childhood. He attended the University of Melbourne and worked as a teacher. In 1941 he left the Christian Brothers without taking final vows. In World War II he worked as a code-breaker, and for a time he was private secretary to former prime minister Billy Hughes.

After the war, West became a successful writer and producer of radio serials. In 1955 he left Australia to build an international career as a writer. With his family, he lived in Austria, Italy, England and the USA, including a stint as the Vatican correspondent for the British newspaper, the Daily Mail. He returned to Australia in 1982.

Morris West wrote 30 books and many plays, and several of his novels were adapted for film. His books were published in 28 languages and sold more than 60 million copies worldwide. Each new book he wrote after he became an established writer sold more than one million copies.

West received many awards and accolades over his long writing career, including the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the W.H. Heinemann Award of the Royal Society of Literature for The Devil's Advocate. In 1978 he was elected a fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 1985, and was made an Officer of the Order (AO) in 1997.

Morris West died at his desk in 1999.

Reviews

[Lobstergirl · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a mystery about two unknown Raphaels which surface mysteriously in Tuscany (then immediately go into hiding) and the unsolved murder of a unheralded woman painter in Manhattan, but the biggest mystery is how the young protagonist, the handsome archivist and paleographer Max Mather, knows so much about the legalities of contracts and shell corporations. His attitudes, speech, and innate wisdom would seem to belong to a much older, more experienced person. Someone like, perhaps, Morris West, who published this at 72.

I see that West considered himself a committed Catholic but that didn't prevent a lot of cringey sex palaver. "My daughter tells me...that you're good in bed," says an art auctioneer to Mather. Someone tells him the editor they are recommending for him is "quite a formidable young woman. I'm told she has offbeat sex preferences." (This turns out to mean mostly lesbian.) But the lesbian editor nearly falls for Mather: "No man deserves to be as goodlooking as you are." The daughter of the art auctioneer tells Mather about her father, "He brought me extravagant presents and made me understand what it meant to be flattered and courted as a woman. If you're a girl that's what fathers are for, Max." Well, maybe if you're Ivanka Trump. For the rest of us not so much.

The attitudes toward gender are about as expected for someone born in 1916. "For that I'd give you one of our senior editors. Do you have any objection to working with a woman?" A 30-something woman who teaches law is referred to as "a very bright, very modern, but also very traditional Swiss girl." A woman is arrested for murder; her lawyer says, "The girl denies the charge." When Mather offers to post bail for her, her lawyer counters non-sequiturially, "The lady is, on her own confession, a lesbian," then, "The girl does have enough assets" to post bail. I could never tell whether someone was a "girl," a "lady," or a "woman." It was most confusing.

[Bonnie Wilson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I cannot resist mysteries centered around Renaissance art, which is why I picked this up when it came my way even though I've never had the slightest interest in any other book by this author. I think the best description of the plot is that it is entirely too clever. The plot has so many threads that by the end a reference to a critical point in one of them left me totally lost - I could not remember what it was.

The characters are also clever and devious and layered with multiple ulterior motives that can't disguise that they are essentially stock figures. The Rogue with a Good Heart. The Tortured Artist. The Good Woman. I found it impossible to care in the slightest what happened to any of them. It took me days to finish the book because I kept forgetting I was reading it.

I did enjoy the depiction of the underbelly of the art world, though I have no way to know if it has any basis in reality, and the bits about art copies, forgeries, and restoration. Two stars only for that and because the writing is not glaringly awful.

[DoctorM · Rating 4 out of 5]

An older novel, and one I've enjoyed for rather a while. The secondary plot, the murder mystery, is only a distraction, and could be cut without losing anything in the story. What I liked here is the detail about art world politics and about how the hero creates shell companies and deals with Swiss bankers and art lawyers to handle getting his acquisition (a...possibly real...sketch for an Old Master) out of Italy and marketed. After all-- the book taught me how to set up a Panamanian corporation and smuggle paintings: key things to know. So... a good weekend read, and (for me) an aspirational tale.

[Joan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very intriguing story of a man tempted by greed and then having to cope and face the consequences. A secondary storyline of an artist murdered and her life, morality and paintings exposed and offered to the world. A well written tale using the art world as a back drop- the honest, the rogues, the underhanded all vying for previously unknown priceless paintings. Morris West understood the frailties of human nature and used that to build great characters.

[Nira Ramachandran · Rating 5 out of 5]

A window into the fascinating world of Art on both sides of the Atlantic. Artists, who live by their own, often insane, set of rules, connoisseurs, art collectors, critics, art dealers and auctioneers, lawyers and bankers and the glitterati: a whole new world for those unacquainted with this niche. Max Mather, trained paleographer and custodian of the Palombini archives in Italy, enjoys a leisured lifestyle at the behest of his patroness, Pia Palombini. Accustomed to an easy living, numerous friends and girlfriends from the same niche, Max is quite content till the sudden illness and death of Pia leaves him adrift. Though a warm- hearted man and intensely loyal to his friends, when fate provides an unexpected opportunity to access a fortune, he is not above grasping it. The twists and turns involved in smuggling rare works of art out of the country, and setting about gaining provenance for the same before cashing in on his find, form the core of the tale. West has a masterly grip on human nature, introducing a plethora of characters with their virtues and vices, and weaving them into a plausible plot. The gifted copyist Niccolo Tolentino, the beautiful American Anne Marie returning home from Florence to open her own Art Gallery, the bitter, haunted Attorney Ed Bayard, the spirit of his wife gifted artist Madeline Bayard hovering over it all. A gripping tale with a murder mystery thrown in, moving from Florence to Zurich and then to New York, it holds the reader’s interest till the very end.

[Fran Winandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bom passatempo

[Nathan Chattaway · Rating 3 out of 5]

Such an interesting and obscure book by a relatively unknown author in modern times. If you've read any of Patricia Highsmith's Ripley novels, this will seem familiar, at least initially. Published in 1988, the novel reads as if it could be set at any point in the 1950s - 1960s and indeed has the feel of the early Jet Set era. There is just a single throwaway reference to travelling via Concorde that dates it later than this, though there's not at all a late 80s vibe as you read.

The writing is a tad wooden in places, but this is easily forgiven because it's also very poetic now and again. It would benefit from a solid edit, perhaps even an abridged version. It seems I'm not alone in this, since I first discovered West via a Reader's Digest condensed books omnibus.

How much time needs to pass before what was published as a contemporary thriller becomes a period piece? This was the second novel I've read by Morris West, and I think they both qualify.

[Ainee Beland · Rating 3 out of 5]

One cold winter evening, while the night nurse was knitting at the fireside and he was seated on the settee cradling Pia in his arms, she reached up a tiny clawed hand to touch his cheek. Then as if the effort was too much, she gave a small sigh of weariness, turned her face to his breast and died. He carried her upstairs, watched the nurse settle her decently in the bed, called for the parish priest and him sat by the dying fire, lonelier than he had ever felt in his life. He had escaped her at last, as he had longed wished to do.

------

Max Mather’s plight, at the moment, was that he was in bondage to the Palombi household and perhaps now he could bargain for his freedom and passage to New York, the art capital. Well, for him it is America.

With Pia’s death and leaving him to select the painting of his choice he was free to leave and travel to New York as was his resolve.

The lost he felt upon her dying was described as such: “I feel as if locked in a vault and Pia has flown away.”(7)

As true love can only be experienced in agony, in terrible wrenching at the heartstrings.

[Pedro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bastante entretenido, pero despues se hace algo engorroso por la detallada descripcion del mundo del arte. Ademas, no creo que fuese necesario el incluir el misterio de la muerte de la esposa artista. Pero en definitiva es pasable para ofrecer una buena lectura.

[Corinne Johnston · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this novel, over 30 years old, but still relevant today. Although technology and security would change the activities completely, the actions and desires of humans has not changed at all.

[Laszlo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Master work !

[Rob Wills]

Clumsy, over-written, obvious, crude. A fine example of a dud novel. No stars. A shocker.

[Martin West · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good yarn. Read it twice now.

[Cyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoy books by West, they are a bit wordy, but still good. His characters are well developed, and plot is thoughtfully woven.

[Lily Mulholland · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was going to give this book four stars right up until the second last chapter. The ending was too easy, too pat, and a little trite. This was a pity, as the writing really was very good - much better than you usually find in murder mysteries. The settings were also excellent - New York, Italy, Switzerland. The characters were interesting, although possibly not as well fleshed out as they should have been. I did note an overabundance of exclamation marks in the dialogue, which grated. It was interesting that the author, Morris West, chose an omniscient third person narrator - I kept wondering why he chose to do that and then realised that an objective narrator wouldn't have been able to give the reader enough information about the supporting characters. But I don't think the omniscient narrative actually helped to drive the story and it was a distraction for me, the reader. However, the book was still very readable - I read it while sick and it was easy to read, understand and enjoy. If you're looking for something a bit challenging, I would recommend you look elsewhere.

[Sandra Yuen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Masterclass is not only an entertaining read but demonstrates West's knowledge of art dealers and the intricacies of the art world. As an art history major, I was intrigued by the wheeling and dealing by Maxwell Mather, a young American art historian who finds a set of priceless art works in an archive where he works and plots to profit. The storyline also involves the murder case of Madeleine Bayard, a artist with a perversion, and her legacy of artwork. Certain elements of the story are hidden from the reader, until West reveals them. Are the paintings forgeries? Who murdered Madeleine? What is Maxwell's next ploy? West is a mastermind storyteller.

A fine read.

[adri patamoma · Rating 3 out of 5]

este é o segundo livro que leio do morris west; o primeiro achei bem ruinzinho, mas este foi melhor -- mais interessante, ele conta uma história mais dinâmica. de qualquer forma, este livro é da década de 80, o que traz um tipo de escrita diferente do qual estou acostumada, e que não é tão legal. além disso, confesso que não sou grande apreciadora de histórias que contam como alguém, através de planos mirabolantes, consegue trapacear um monte de gente. ainda assim, o livro não é ruim.

[Sally Stanton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an older book I discovered and both my husband and I enjoyed reading it. It has lots of intricate details and characters to keep your mind working. The subject was about the art world and the people involved which is something different. It's a bit of a caper with a murder mystery that adds to the intrigue. Good character development of the main characters.

[Johanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story is gripping enough but the characters are pretty flat and in the end the loose ends are tied a bit too fast and easy. Also, I didn't feel the love story at all. What was really fun though was the journey back to the 80s: fax machines, phone calls on the land line only, dias sent via snail mail...

[Phil Lawless · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of all of Morris West's novels, this is my favorite. I just finished readiNg it for about the fifth time, and I got even more enjoyment out of this read than even the first time. West is writes in a very subtle way, and a single word can be overlooked in a sentence that conveys a wealth of meaning.

[Juanita · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once again, another author I'd forgotten I like so much. This book has it all; murder, intrigue, and a fascinating look into the world of art collection and the artists who create it.

[Pedro Aquino · Rating 3 out of 5]

O morris west mais fraco que já li.

[Bev Maybury · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read

[Rebecca Strouse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written but perhaps more interesting for those in the art scene. I did enjoy it though.