Alex Connor's Art Mystery Novels

Alex (Alexandra) Connor was born and educated in England. She has had a variety of careers including photographic model, personal assistant to a world famous heart surgeon, and working in a Bond Street art gallery.Having always had an intense interest in the history of art, Alex – who has previously written historical novels and non fiction – is now concentrating on writing conspiracy thrillers set in the art world.

The Rembrandt Secret (aka The Other Rembrandt)

History's biggest conspiracy is about to be revealed. But not if a brutal murderer has anything to do with it . . .

Marshall Ziegler's father runs a gallery in London, which Marshall has always ignored. But when his father is beaten to a pulp, disembowelled and left to die, Marshall suddenly needs to know every last detail of his life.

He discovers that his father knew a dark secret at the heart of Rembrandt's life, one that has the potential to bring down one of the worlds most lucrative industries. But a sadistic murderer is on the case, killing in increasingly brutal ways to keep it hidden.

Will Marshall beat the killer to the truth? Who can he trust? Will he stay alive long enough to reveal the greatest secret never told?

The Caravaggio Conspiracy

1608. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, the greatest Italian painter of his day, is expelled from the Order of the Knights of Malta. Subject to a clandestine hearing, his crime remains a closely guarded secret.

2014. Two bodies are found in a London art gallery – stripped naked, necks bound with wire and legs obscenely contorted. They are twin brothers – successful art dealers – their brutal murder linked to the mysterious disappearance of two paintings by the master Caravaggio.

Investigators are confounded, and it falls to art expert Gil Eckhart to identify the killer before he slays again. But as the search for clues takes him from the glamorous skyline of New York to the fetid catacombs of Palermo, Eckhart finds that in the high-stakes world of art, good and evil are often tarred with the same, blood-soaked, brush.

The Bosch Deception

A Truth Concealed: Brabant, 1473. 

A clandestine brotherhood hides a secret that could bring down the Catholic Church. Their chosen hiding place - the art of Hieronymus Bosch.

A Terrible Conspiracy: London, 2014. 

An excommunicated priest approaches both the Church and the art world, claiming to possess an artefact that will destroy their reputations.

A Ticking Clock: This man, Nicholas Laverne, is poised to end over 500 years of silence and injustice. Yet, unknown to Nicholas, he has just summoned a killer intent on silencing him.

I read the above three books over the course of a couple of weeks, interspersed with my other reading - its is amazing how quickly you can get through a physical book compared to an e-book.

I started with Caravaggio then Bosch and finished with Rembrandt. Of the three, only the enigmatic Caravaggio held any real interest for me - I just happened upon the other two at the same time as I came across the Caravaggio tome - and thought, why not?  All three had been sitting on the shelves of my own personal library for a number of years before I finally picked them off the shelf.  I had in the meantime read Connor's The Wolves of Venice, which I really didn't like, and figured - as I was in the midst of a book culling - to finally read a number of tomes that had been gathering dust, especially those that appeared to be a part of a series - or in this instance, similarly themed.  

Despite the different cast of characters, artist and mystery, the narrative formula is essentially the same. Past events surrounding a famous artist insinuate themselves into the 20th / 21st Century, requiring the solving / revealing of the said mystery with ensuing high body count.

Whilst I did enjoy these three for what they were - an not too dull adventure in the art world with a healthy dose of conspiracy theory - they really are not something I would go back to read again.  And so these three tomes will be donated / consigned to the little neighbourhood street library with a number of others.

More historical art mysteries:

> Reader's Digest: 13 Strangest Unsolved Mysteries of the Art World

> Culture Trip: 11 Biggest Unsolved Art Mysteries of All Time

Review: The Birdman's Wife by Melissa Ashley

In just 12 years of marriage, Elizabeth Gould travelled the globe, painted hundreds of birds and raised six children. All this in the 1800's! She died in childbirth (1841 aged 37yo) and her work was published under her husband's name in John Gould's "Birds of Australia."

In the "Birdman's Wife", Melissa Ashley introduces us to Elizabeth Gould - wife, mother, artist, footnote. We meet Elizabeth in 1828, when she first encounters John Gould at the Zoological Society in London. Elizabeth spent some ten years collaborating with John, including some two years in Australia (1838), classifying and illustrating native birdlife.

However, this was not as glamorous as it sounds - with the public's fascination with the exotic, many artists embarked on journeys to parts known and unknown, all in the name of science. And it was no easy task to represent nature in it's own environment - these creatures were often caught, killed, stuffed and posed so that they could be diligently documented.

Ashley thoroughly immersed herself in her research (which formed the basis of her PhD), and this shows in the meticulous details, which at times makes for rather laborious reading.

Apart from mentions in various books on illustrators and artists, the only definitive biography on Elizabeth was "The Story of Elizabeth Gould" published by Alec Chisholm in 1944. Very little was known about her until 1938 when a collection of her letters written from Australia was discovered. These letters were the basis for Chisholm's book, and now Ashley's fictionalised account. Elizabeth's letters are housed in the Mitchell Library (part of the State Library of New South Wales, Australia), and reveal Elizabeth to be a charming, cultured, and musically and artistically talented woman whose contributions were overshadowed by the fame of her husband, John Gould. 

further reading:

@ The Guardian - Pecking Order: How John Gould Dined Out On The Birds Of Australia

@ University of Kansas - Elizabeth Gould

@ Australian Museum - Elizabeth Gould

@ Australian Dictionary of Biography - Elizabeth Gould

@ Compulsive Reader - Review of The Birdman's Wife

@ Glasgow University Library - Birds of Australia

@ Smithsonian Libraries - Elizabeth Gould