Jonathan Santlofer

When I picked this up I thought it would possibly be a bit trashy but entertaining. I was wrong. It was totally trashy and not entertaining.

The brand name dropping was reminiscent of someone trying to pretend they got what Bret Easton Ellis was doing with that in American Psycho. For a book that was clearly pushing the 'smoking is evil and gives you cancer' angle, maybe the author shouldn't have mentioned Marlboro like he was getting a blowjob for each mention.

I finally pitched this waste of paper into the recycling bin when I got to the part where the female main character muses on how she feeds her husband's secretary chocolate truffles to make sure she stays 'plus-sized', and hopes that said secretary stays in her role until after retirement age. Because of course if the secretary is fat and/or old, the husband won't fuck her. I can deal with thrillers being trashy and derivative but piling on the misogynistic body shaming was just too much.

I am rating this one star because unfortunately the rating system doesn't go into negative numbers. Beauty school dropout, go back to art college.… (més)

Luke and Alex may have discovered a lost painting by Van Gogh. But, before they can get it authenticated, the painting is stolen. They contact an acquaintance, Interpol Agent, John Washington. And it is not long that John discovers there is more to this than he ever imagined.

This is very well researched with quite a bit of enjoyable history. I mean, who doesn’t love to read about Van Gogh! And the mystery surrounding the painting…is it real? Is it fake? This is what kept the story moving for me!

I have only read one other novel by this author, The Last Mona Lisa. I enjoyed that book quite a bit more than this one. This story just seems to be all over the place. It is a bit discombobulated and unorganized. Now, as I always say…read this for yourself to form your own opinion.

I received this novel from the publisher for a honest review.… (més)

I really wanted to like this. I read The Death Artist back in 2008, and I loved it. I rated it 5 stars, and I remember staying up late into the night to finish it. Perhaps my tastes have changed since then, but I just couldn't get into the sequel. I found Kate self-absorbed and unlikeable, and the writing irritating. I was well aware that it was a man writing a woman's POV, because so many of Kate's thoughts didn't sound right. She talked about going out with her "women friends", for example, which made me grit my teeth. It sounds exactly like something a man would say. Anyway, there were a bunch of instances like those, and eventually I just had to admit I didn't care enough about what happened to keep reading.… (més)