Here are 2 books that Cold Case Quartet fans have personally recommended once you finish the Cold Case Quartet series.
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I loved this book because of its larger-than-life main character, Rembrandt van Rijn, the Golden Age Dutch painter who took the world by storm with his bravura artworks, like Night Watch. And who better to write about this great artist than the scholar Simon Schama?
I loved the way he brings Rembrandt to life, weaving into his life story the creation of his great works. I felt it was a bit like reading a Shakespeare tragedy as Rembrandt, once rich and famous, gradually descends towards poverty and loneliness as his marriage to Saskia fails and his debts spiral out of control. I loved the extraordinary detail of Schama’s almost forensic account of the creation of the paintings and his sympathy with the great Dutch artist’s genius and life.
This dazzling, unconventional biography shows us why, more than three centuries after his death, Rembrandt continues to exert such a hold on our imagination. Deeply familiar to us through his enigmatic self-portraits, few facts are known about the Leiden miller's son who tasted brief fame before facing financial ruin (he was even forced to sell his beloved wife Saskia's grave). The true biography of Rembrandt, as Simon Schama demonstrates, is to be discovered in his pictures. Interweaving of seventeenth-century Holland, Schama allows us to see Rembrandt in a completely fresh and original way.
All of Donna Leon's books are rich with colors and textures of contemporary Venice, including the amazing aromas of elegant sauces and tangy citrus. Death at La Fenice was her very first, with an introduction to Guido Brunetti, a deep and compassionate police detective.
Cerebral detectives with an undercurrent of emotion can be fascinating, and Leon’s Guido Brunetti is one of the best. Like Le Carre’s George Smiley, Brunetti is likable, thoughtful, introspective, and slightly lethargic. While Smiley is distant, Brunetti’s emotions are often on display, in a good way. Add the rich and complex history of Venice, and a startling performance at Teatro La Fenice, and Leon’s first novel, published in 1992, is a wonderful debut.
'A splendid series . . . with a backdrop of the city so vivid you can almost smell it.' The Sunday Telegraph
Winner of the Suntory Mystery Fiction Grand Prize __________________________________
The twisted maze of Venice's canals has always been shrouded in mystery. Even the celebrated opera house, La Fenice, has seen its share of death ... but none so horrific and violent as that of world-famous conductor, Maestro Helmut Wellauer, who was poisoned during a performance of La Traviata. Even Commissario of Police, Guido Brunetti, used to the labyrinthine corruptions of the city, is shocked at the number of…
