The Last Judgement

by Iain Pears Narrated by Geoffrey Howard

Overview

Paris can do strange things to a man's mind-like make him agree to an apparently harmless favor of escorting a picture to Rome. It seems routine work, and art dealer Jonathan Argyll gets to meet his girlfriend, Flavia, who works for Rome's Art Theft Squad.

“The Death of Socrates” is a particularly nondescript piece, so Jonathan can sympathize when its recipient refuses to accept delivery. But in an unusual twist, the same man is found dead a few hours later. Surely the painting wasn't that bad? Now caught up in a murder investigation, Jonathan recalls an attempt to steal the artwork while he was at the train station. Could this be the killer? What is so special about this painting? The bodies start piling up and Jonathan must uncover the dark wartime secret at the heart of the mystery-before someone puts him out of the picture for good.

With customary wit and panache, Jonathan and Flavia embark on a breathless chase to capture a killer who has been refining his own particular art for many years.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The latest (mis)adventure of art historian Jonathan Argyll delivers its plot twists at a rapid clip right up to the closing pages, where Jonathan's lover, Flavia di Stefano of Rome''s Art Theft Department, cuts straight to the tale's core of murderous greed. Jonathan agrees to hand-deliver a small, undistinguished painting from a Paris art dealer to Arthur Muller, the buyer in Rome. But in short order, someone tries to steal the painting from Jonathan; Muller is tortured and murdered; a man carrying both Muller's and Jonathan's addresses is also killed; and French authorities demand that Jonathan return the painting, which might be stolen. While Jonathan restores the painting to its rightful owner, who turns out to be a hero from the French Resistance, Flavia discovers that Muller was obsessed with learning about his father-whose own wartime death and Resistance involvement were apparently less honorable. Graced with a sharp intellect and terrier-like tenacity, Flavia charges on, even when Jonathan's courage flags and the French powers-that-be are deliberately unhelpful. By giving his sleuths an ample supply of dirty little secrets to unearth and solve, Pears (The Bernini Bust) keeps them and his readers well occupied. (Apr.)

Library Journal

Jonathan Argyll, British art dealer and sleuth, delivers an obscure 18th-century painting to a Parisian dealer's client in Rome. The client, however, ends up dead. Argyll and his fiance, Flavia de Stefano, pursue the murderer as well as information about the painting. A solidly enjoyable series.

Kirkus Reviews

When will Jonathan Argyll learn? This time, the budding international art dealer with a nose for trouble volunteers to deliver a minor French painting to its new owner in Rome, only to find on his arrival that (1) the buyer, Arthur Muller, no longer wants it; (2) by the next day Muller's been tortured and killed; and (3) back in France, the canvas has been reported stolen. Even as Argyll's tracing the painting's ties to the ugly betrayal of a Resistance cell in wartime France, his unofficial fiancée Flavia di Stefano, of Rome's Art Squad, is getting ready, as usual, to save him from his own impetuosity—and from more of the worst judgment boasted by any fictional detective outside the funny pages.

Though the flashback to historical intrigue barely 50 years old is something of a novelty for Pears (The Bernini Bust, 1994, etc.), Argyll and Flavia's fourth is as densely plotted as ever.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169748666
Publisher:	Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Publication date:	09/29/2009
Series:	Jonathan Argyll , #5
Edition description:	Unabridged

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