I had to give this series of books their own page just because I've enjoyed them so much. Update: And I've added the Chris Norgren books, as well, although these were published under Aaron Elkins's name alone in 1987 and 1993.
Alix London, daughter of disgraced art conservator and master forger Geoffrey London, is trying to pick of the pieces of her fledgling career in the Seattle art world after her father's trial and imprisonment for fraud in A Dangerous Talent, published in 2012 She's been hired by nouveau riche art collector Chris LeMay to evaluate a painting alleged to be by Georgia O'Keefe that Chris is thinking of buying. Alix and Chris fly to Santa Fe, but before they even get a good look at the painting someone has attempted to kill Alix and has succeeded in murdering the gallery owner. If that's not enough, Alix has to deal with a snooty art dealer (or is he really?) and try to sort out her feelings about her father, who is out of prison and has now resurfaced in her life. Caution: this book moves along at a cracking pace, don't start reading it just before bedtime, you'll be up all night finishing it. Ask me how I know this. Grade: A+
Now working as a consultant for the FBI's Art Fraud team, Alix is sent on A Cruise To Die For aboard the super-yacht of Greek multimillionaire Panos Papadakis to gather information about a Ponzi scheme he's running involving fractional investments in art works. Alix's job is to give informal talks to a group of wealthy investors before an on-board art auction as the yacht cruises around the Greek isles, but she's barely on board before she's cracked over the head and a famous Manet is slashed before she can even get a good look at it. Grade: A.
A nasty campaign of negative reviews of Alix's modest little book on painting conservation threatens to undermine her budding career as she sets off to work on three paintings destined for auction by a Palm Springs museum in The Art Whisperer. When she is murderously attacked after expressing doubts about the authenticity of the museum's recently acquired Jackson Pollack painting, and the well-hated senior curator of the museum is killed, it's apparent that something is very wrong at the museum. Grade: A. I had to give this series of books their own page just because I've enjoyed them so much.
The Trouble With Mirrors, as Alix London discovers, is that sometimes they're not what they seem to be. A mirror given to her years ago by her beloved Zio Beni, AKA her father's art forger friend Tiny, has been stolen from her apartment just days after it's shown in a photograph on the cover of Art World Insider magazine. Not only that, but Tiny himself has disappeared and may even have Genoese Mafia hoodlums after him. What else can Alix do but try to find him herself and discover the secret of the mirror? This is another one you shouldn't start reading just before bedtime. Grade A+.
Update: Although Charlotte Elkins gets no official credit for the Chris Norgren books, it's pretty clear that no one but art historian and museum curator Charlotte Elkins could have contributed the wealth of detail to these books, so I've included them to this post. And, as sort of a wink to the reader, several of the characters in the Norgren books, written decades earlier, show up later in several of the London books.
In A Deceptive Clarity, published in 1987, San Francisco art historian and curator Chris Norgren accepts a temporary assignment in Europe to escape from the details of a painful divorce. The U.S. Army is sponsoring an exhibit in Berlin called The Plundered Past, featuring art works seized during the war by the Nazis from the collection of wealthy Italian art collector Claudio Bolzano; the art works, including three additional pieces recently found in a salt mine, have been restored to Bolzano by the Army, who may now be changing his mind about allowing them to be exhibited. When Chris's boss tells him that one of the works may be a forgery, and is then promptly murdered, Chris starts to take the job seriously. Grade: A.
Art historian Chris Norgren is once again jetting off to Europe in Old Scores, this time to Dijon, France, to examine a possible Rembrandt that has been offered to the Seattle Art Museum. The catch is that he's given a limited amount of time to evaluate the painting's authenticity, and the collector offering the painting is notorious for his ambiguous dealings with the art world. Grade: A.
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