In the seaside city of San Marco, Florida, Lise Norwood spends her days serving papers and her nights spying on cheating spouses. But before she became a PI, she was an art major at San Marco University. So when the local police ask her to consult on a murder case in which the victim was posed to resemble a classic Greek sculpture, Lise dusts off her art history degree and joins the task force.As … force.As the artistic madman known as Michelangelo continues to copy more works of art, Lise starts her own investigation into the gruesome killings. When she gets too far, she’s fired from the case.Being told to step back only spurs her to dig deeper. Her inquiries take an ugly and personal turn when Michelangelo threatens to make her his next bloody masterpiece. And the key to the case might be a stolen piece of artwork very few know exists.
more
When I first saw this mystery dealt with art, I immediately thought of a few others I’ve read. They were dry. Don’t know any other way to describe it. Not this one, though. This one is fast moving and easy to read. It’s humorous and has plenty of action. Analise, or Lise for short, is a sassy Private Investigator and has a background in art. Is she an investigator dealing in art fraud or theft? Not exactly, she’s still at the “stalking cheating husbands” stage of her business. This death and art case sort of falls into her lap. She most certainly sees art she never thought she’d see and it’s not the kind of art you see walking through a museum.
This is an author that not only creates the kind of characters I like, the kind you can see, the kind you feel you can know. He also keeps you right on the edge of your seat. I was going to tell you that he threw one red herring after another into the story but that would sound as if he added misleading clues. His writing was never unclear. He was just very good at creating turns in the road so fast I lost my balance, at least in my thinking. So did Lise for that matter. At least until the painting made sense.
Rarely do I give 5-star ratings. 5-star books must be special and this book, well…it’s special.
A great story with lots of suspense. This is Book 1 of a series titled “A Lise Norwood Mystery”. I hope we see book 2 soon.
Couldn’t put it down.
Wordy and boring.
Well written. Great story
I just finished reading it. Once I started I could not put it down. It was a real page turner. One of the better books I have read lately and I read a lot!
Lise was an art major in college but has ended up a private eye. She is working on a case involving a rare sketch by 2 famous artists and is drawn into a murder who poses his victims in an artistic fashion. Not only were the 2 cases interesting, but I found myself going to the internet to see the actual statue or painting that the killer was using. Lise has her suspicions and eventually figures out the killer – just about the same time that I did. I have a feeling this may be the beginning of a new series – I hope so!
A man who is killing woman and posing them after works of art is targeting Lise. As Lise helps the police in their investigation, she cannot help but think that Michelangelo might be someone she knows. I really enjoyed figuring out how her brain was working. She took clues, made them make sense, and was able to put together a who-dun-it. She was not always right, but her reasoning made sense and she stayed true to who she thought Michelangelo was until it was proven she was wrong. Lise had knowledge, skills, and the ability to think outside the box.
I loved seeing how the case would unfold and how the clues all came together. Andrew Nance did an amazing job of telling a story that stayed true to police work, kept the clues coming while not giving away the who-dun-it, and keeping the storyline intriguing. I felt that the characters were realistic and easy to like. The storyline moved quick enough to keep my interested but gave enough detail that I was able to make my own guesses that were not always right but were not way off course either.
Let me start with the bottom line: “Red Canvas” is a thrilling, well-plotted and well-written mystery with a captivating new woman PI at the center of the action. Author Andrew Nance, as he did in his prior thriller/mystery “All the Lovely Children,” spins a dark and twisted tale with exceptional skill in the plotting, the characters, the suspense, and the setting.
Set on the northeast coast of Florida, “Red Canvas” is the first book in a new series. The lead character is a woman PI, Analise “Lise” Norwood, who has a background in art history from a local university. Described as an “overachiever,” Lise is a compelling and sympathetic lead. The unsolved murder of her cousin, who was more like a little sister than cousin, haunts and motivates Lise throughout the story.
Lise is working on a private case involving a stolen work of art—a sketch done by Picasso and Dali together on a linen napkin that is worth a small fortune. When a serial killer begins to pose his female victims in grotesque fashions that mimic famous works of art, the local police retain Lise as a consultant because of her art knowledge. The two cases will cross in the story line, though not in any obvious way that readers might expect.
Lise is able to identify the art works the killer is copying with his dead victim’s bodies, but she desperately wants to do more to capture the perverse killer. Highly motivated, and not entirely trustful of the police detectives on the case, she takes off investigating on her own–which gets her fired by the police and in the cross-hairs of the killer.
There are no shortages of suspects in the tale, including one of the detectives on the case, an artist/art dealer with a shady Miami past, and Lise’s own boyfriend, an art professor. Nor is there any shortage of suspense—especially when the killer breaks into Lise’s house and leaves her a picture of an artwork to let her know he has targeted her as his next victim. This begins a long game of cat and mouse, with escalating danger for Lise and rising tension for the readers.
One of the police officers, Detective Baker, is an especially intriguing character with his own questionable past to reckon with. Lise notes that his “sense of humor was drier than unbuttered toast.”
There’s violence, so it might not be for the squeamish, but for mystery and thriller lovers, this is a great read. Nance is a fine writer, with a keen appreciation for language and a sharp eye for telling details. He excels at plotting and suspense. I eagerly await the next book in the series.