The Commissions

by Paul Madonna

Get ready for a rollicking and irresistible new mystery from award-winning artist and author Paul Madonna.

Amsterdam, 2019—following the conclusion of Come to Light. Former rock star-turned-artist Emit Hopper’s life has taken yet another strange turn. His old friend, the legendary San Francisco private detective Ronnie Gilbert, is dead, and his killer has just been acquitted. But when a disheveled acquaintance from Ronnie’s past walks into Emit’s shop, a puzzling mystery resurfaces, twenty years cold.

We’re transported back to San Francisco, 1999, when Emit and Ronnie first met. Emit has returned to taking commissions drawing people’s houses, only to be strong-armed by a shady police lieutenant into acting as her off-the-books spy. On top of that, a strange young woman claiming to be his daughter refuses to leave him alone. From there unfolds an intricate tale of corruption and murder that leads to an explosive scandal, with consequences that, two decades hence, are finally revealed.

From the world of the Emit Hopper Mystery series, The Commissions kicks off the origin story of what promises to be an unforgettable new eccentric detective, Ronnie Gilbert. In a mystery filled with suspense and surprises around every corner, Paul Madonna brings to life the last days of San Francisco before the turn of the millennium with dozens of his signature pen-and-ink drawings.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery

464 pages, Hardcover

Published September 5, 2023

About the author

Paul Madonna is an award-winning artist and author whose unique blend of drawing and storytelling has been heralded as an “all new art form.” He is the creator of the series All Over Coffee, which ran in the San Francisco Chronicle for twelve years, and the author of seven books,  All Over Coffee ,  Everything is its own reward (winner of the 2011 NCBA Award for best book),  On to the Next Dream , You Know Exactly (finalist for the 2022 Golden Poppy Book Awards), and the Emit Hopper Mystery Series, Close Enough for the Angels , Come to Light , and The Commissions . Paul also collaborated with award-winning author Gary Kamiya on the best-selling book Spirits of San Francisco .

Paul's drawings and stories have appeared internationally in numerous publications such as the Believer and zyzzyva, as well as in galleries and museums, including the Oakland Museum of California, the San Francisco Contemporary Jewish Museum, The San Francisco International airport, and the William Blake Association in France. Paul was a founding editor for therumpus.net, has taught drawing at the University of San Francisco, and frequently lectures on creative practice. He holds a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University and was the first (ever!) Art Intern at MAD magazine.

Reviews

[Bruce Lesley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful novel and can be read either as a standalone story or as the third in his Emit Hopper series (re: Close Enough for Angels & Come to Light), great character development so you'll care what is happening to whom, in fact San Francisco the city becomes a "character" itself as described so vividly, all the plot twists that you expect from a great mystery and a HUGH BONUS with fabulous art throughout which conveys the story even further, I felt like I was Emit Hopper during this reading as absorbing is Madonna's writing skill, and you'll be pleased with some subtle setups for the next novel in this series!

PS: It's enough to say that I marked my calendar months and monhts ago as to when The Commissions would be published and bought it immediately to start reading!

PSS: If you are new to this author I recommend reading The Comissions first then go back and read his first two novels.

[Aprovertte · Rating 2 out of 5]

takes an interesting approach to mystery writing in that the main character isn't really involved in the mystery at all except as a passive bystander who's been roped into the whole thing by accident, and thus all the most exciting moments in the plot are conveyed to him second- or third-hand. like it felt like madonna specifically chose to tell this story through the eyes of the character with the least interesting pov. this maybe could have worked if the book was less bland. all the characters have more or less the same flat and annoying personality and same voice. the prose is so lacking in affect it's almost uncanny. as someone who lives in the bay area i was really hyped for a san francisco-based mystery novel but there's no tone or texture in any of the writing, nothing that makes the city feel like a real place. there's nothing that feels like genuine emotional texture in any of the character's relationships - nothing that makes them feel sympathetic or even real. meanwhile we get treated to lots of meaningless laundry list descriptions of every time the main character orders takeout, makes coffee, drinks coffee, changes clothes, or parks his car. the thing that was most baffling to me is that so much of the mystery hinges on this one tertiary character and every one else in the story is trying to puzzle out his underlying motivations, but the man himself hardly ever appears on the page and there's really no justifiable reason for this? he shows up for like 2 scenes early in the book (plus one scene in a flash forward), has zero personality, and then we're meant to spend the rest of the novel caring whether he's the most corrupt or most militantly idealistic cop who's ever lived. what was the point of this? again, there might have been a way to make it work but the dialogue and characterization in this novel are so weak that it's impossible to care about someone who's almost entirely rendered through the second and third-hand descriptions provided by other characters. i did enjoy the illustrations.

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Long and a bit convoluted but an interesting mystery. Loved the inclusion of the drawings. Think it needed an edit.