Here are 100 books that Death and Restoration fans have personally recommended if you like
Death and Restoration.
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People behave rationally and irrationally. Observing and thinking about human nature is the sport of my lifetime. In literature and art, I worship real wit. I thirst for the unusual, the deadpan, the acknowledging of one thing while another slips in unseen. Wit has been, for me, a shield and a tool for good. I try not to use it as a weapon because wit as a weapon often damages a wider target than one intends. I strive to endow my fictional women, my protagonists, with sharp yet understated wit that spares no one, not even themselves. Especially not themselves. The books I recommend here live up to my standards.
I’m not a fan of novels that are paced like greased rockets, as if the author’s afraid you’ll suddenly throw the book across the room, turn on Netflix, and order a pizza. Which is a key reason I love this book. Precious Ramotswe is a “traditionally built” woman who solves crimes in a superbly witty yet unhurried fashion and with deep compassion that stops short of sentimentality.
Her heart (huge) and brain (gently incisive) work in perfect tandem in this book. The plot is simple, which will frustrate readers who prefer intricate puzzles in their crime fiction. But for me, the pleasure lies in leisurely getting to know this wise, ingenious detective and her humble neighborhood in Botswana’s capital city.
Precious Ramotswe, a cheerful woman of traditional build, is the founder of Botswana's first and only ladies' detective agency. Here is a gentle interpretation of the detective role: solving her cases through her innate wisdom and understanding of human nature, she 'helps people with problems in their lives'. With a tone that is as elegant as that which is unfailingly used by his protagonist, Alexander McCall Smith tenderly unfolds a picture of life in Gaborone with a mastery of comic understatement and an evident sympathy for his subjects and their milieu. In the background of all this is Botswana, a…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I have just written my twelfth novel and quite possibly my last. I’ve returned to where my heart is. My first five crime novels came about through the generous help of some undercover California wildlife agents. Now, in a sense, I’m back where I started, except that my latest book is also a love story. We make plenty of mistakes in life, some much worse than others. My characters deal with them in their own way. I can understand that, and I like that. And hey, there’s always the possibility of redemption.
I remember summers growing up when we were out of the house seeking freedom from parents as we streamed toward our teenage years, so I can identify with this story’s start. We’d follow deer trails through brush and trees to spots up in the hills we’d claimed as our own. This book begins with a prologue made vivid with three children and Tana French’s gorgeous prose.
The children go up and over a rock wall and into “A summer full-throated and extravagant in a hot pure silk skin blue…your tongue tasting of chewed blades of long grass, your own clean sweat…” “…long slow twilight and mothers silhouetted in doorways…” and the haunted last sentence, “These children will not be coming of age, this or any other summer.”
The bestselling debut, with over a million copies sold, that launched Tana French, author of the forthcoming novel The Searcher and "the most important crime novelist to emerge in the past 10 years" (The Washington Post).
"Required reading for anyone who appreciates tough, unflinching intelligence and ingenious plotting." -The New York Times
Now airing as a Starz series.
As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only…
I taught myself to read when I was 4 and have been an omnivorous reader ever since. By the time I was in high school, I was reading the Grand Dame Agatha Christie’s wonderful mysteries. The cozy genre captured me with its deft characterization and clever solutions to “who dunnit.” I wanted to be a writer, received a B.A. and M.A. degree in Literature and later a Ph.D. Once retired from full-time work, I returned to my original desire and as Lia Farrell wrote and published The Mae December Mysteries. Since then, as Lyn Farrell, I have written The Rosedale Investigations series. Together the books have sold 30,000 copies.
I love it when a book takes me to an entirely new world. This series fascinates me with it’s deft portrayal of a wholly different culture in one of the most antithetical-to-life climates on earth.
Arthur Upfield takes us deep into the Australian outback with Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte (Bony), a half white and half aboriginal detective. The two sides of Bony’s heritage are constantly at war and to prevent his black side from winning, he must solve all his cases. Prejudice against the aboriginals is rampant in this world and as readers, we too suffer his stings of rejection.
In this one, Bony must find a missing man who nobody wants found and solve a mystery nobody wants solved. Jeffrey Anderson is a sadist and a brutal drunk. He once stock-whipped an aboriginal man to death.
Now he seems to have fallen off the earth and the aboriginals are the…
Jack Anderson was a big man with a foul temper, a sadist and a drunk. Five months after his horse appeared riderless, no trace of the man has surfaced and no one seems to care. But Bony is determined to follow the cold trail and smoke out some answers.
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
I taught myself to read when I was 4 and have been an omnivorous reader ever since. By the time I was in high school, I was reading the Grand Dame Agatha Christie’s wonderful mysteries. The cozy genre captured me with its deft characterization and clever solutions to “who dunnit.” I wanted to be a writer, received a B.A. and M.A. degree in Literature and later a Ph.D. Once retired from full-time work, I returned to my original desire and as Lia Farrell wrote and published The Mae December Mysteries. Since then, as Lyn Farrell, I have written The Rosedale Investigations series. Together the books have sold 30,000 copies.
Ellis Peters—the penname of Edith Pargeter—wrote eighteen Brother Cadfael mysteries as well as a set of Inspector Felese Mysteries and a separate Trilogy.
All her stories take place during the twelve years when two English monarchs (King Steven and his cousin the Empress Maud) are fighting each other for the throne. Brother Cadfael is a monk who lives in the Abbey of Shrewsbury. A marriage has been arranged between an aging nobleman and a young woman (Iveta, a wealthy heiress), coerced by her greedy guardians. Both parties arrive at the Abbey where the wedding is to take place.
Unbeknownst to her guardians, Iveta has fallen in love with Joscelin, a squire to the bridegroom (Picard). The night before the wedding, Picard goes to visit his long-held mistress and on his return to the Abbey, he is killed. Joscelin is immediately suspected and hunted by the sheriff and his men. He…
Brother Cadfael sets out to visit the Saint Giles leper colony outside Shrewsbury, knowing that a grand wedding is due to take place at the Abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. As he arrives at Saint Giles the nuptial party passes the colony's gates. He sees the fragile bride, looking like a prisoner between her two stern guardians, and the groom, an arrogant, fleshy aristocrat old enough to be her grandfather. With his usual astuteness he suspects that this union may be more damned than blessed. He is horrifically proved right when a savage murder disrupts the May-December marriage…
I arrived in New York City from Germany thirty years ago with two suitcases and a typewriter. Since then, I try to combine my background as an art historian – I hold a M.A. in Art History and Anthropology from the University of Tübingen, Germany – with my experiences travelling around the world for seven years, and my love for writing. After a career in museum education (at the San Diego Museum of Art, the Mingei, and the Athenaeum) I founded Konstellation Press, an indie publishing company for genre fiction. The first of my four novels, Spring of Tears, an art mystery set in France, won the San Diego Book Award.
The settings of this book are Rome, Paris, and London, three of my favorite European cities. The missing Masterpieces are by Caravaggio and Malevich, two of my favorite painters. The author is the founding director of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art (ARCA) and holds a degree in art history, so he knows what he is writing about, and the book contains fascinating details art historical details, but also deep insights into the field or art forgery and international art theft. Enough to keep you glued to your seat for hours.
The disappearance of a priceless Caravaggio in Rome and the famous 'White on White' by Russian painter Kasimir Malevich in Paris heralds the start of a series of seemingly unconnected art crimes across Europe. Fitting the pieces together as they follow a trail of bluffs and double-bluffs, bizarre clues and intellectual puzzles, Inspector Jean-Jacques Bizot in Paris and Harry Wickenden of Scotland Yard come to realize that what at first appears a spate of random thefts is all part of a single master plan, and that they are being led ever deeper into a baffling conspiracy.
My interest in this topic began because of a trip to a museum in 2008. I noticed that a painting had been removed from view and a small piece of paper was hanging on the wall where the painting had been. The paper explained that this piece was involved in a court case revolving around whether or not it had been stolen from its Jewish owner by the Nazis during World War II. Nazi cultural appropriation, looting, suppression, and destruction turned out to be one of the most fascinating stories of the entire war. The research for my historical novel took several years, but it allowed me to write a book based on the facts.
Dagnini’s book focuses specifically on Italy and the amazing stories of Rome, Naples, Florence, and Pisa among others. If you love Italian art and architecture, you will not be able to put this book down. Descriptions of the damage, but also how it was fixed and avoided in some cases, are truly inspiring. Without these Allied personnel, so much more could have been lost.
In 1943, while the world was convulsed by war, a few visionaries -- in the private sector and in the military -- committed to protect Europe's cultural heritage from the indiscriminate ravages of World War II.
In the midst of the conflict, the Allied Forces appointed the monuments officers―a motley group of art historians, curators, architects, and artists―to ensure that the great masterworks of European art and architecture were not looted or bombed into oblivion. The journalist Ilaria Dagnini Brey focuses her spellbinding account on the monuments officers of Italy, quickly dubbed "the Venus Fixers" by bemused troops.
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
Having spent my entire professional life in the art world as a practicing artist, art historian, journalist, curator, and museum director, and as an avid reader of mysteries, I’m excited when I find fiction in which art and crime coincide. Authentic settings, strong characters, and plenty of deception are de rigeur. The occasional dead body is always a plus, though not strictly required. It’s a specialized genre, but it speaks to me and inspires me to write my own series of art-world mysteries, combining fictional characters with real people from my own background and experience.
With the true account of Vincenzo Perrugia’s 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa as its framework, Santlofer’s story follows the thief’s fictional great-grandson on a quest to learn whether the painting now in the Louvre is the original or a brilliant fake.
I’m a fan of all the author’s art-world mysteries, but this one is especially engrossing for its international settings, engaging characters, deftly plotted intrigue, and clever dénouement. As an artist himself, Santlofer weaves in technical details that make the forgery scheme all the more plausible.
ONE OF PEOPLE MAGAZINE'S BEST BOOKS OF SUMMER! "Unstoppable what-happens-next momentum."-Michael Connelly, #1 New York Times bestselling author "A deliciously tense read."-Ruth Ware, #1 New York Times bestselling author From award-winning crime writer and celebrated artist Jonathan Santlofer comes an enthralling tale about the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, the forgeries that appeared in its wake, and the present-day underbelly of the art world. August, 1911: The Mona Lisa is stolen by Vincent Peruggia. Exactly what happens in the two years before its recovery is a mystery. Many replicas of the Mona Lisa exist, and more…
I love a good, clean mystery/suspense story that's light enough to be escape fiction but has enough heart that I engage with the characters. Let me root for them and watch them grow. Give me hope and a happy ending. Bonus if there are some quirky ones who make me smile or some snappy dialogue. Double bonus if it's Christian fiction with an organic, non-preachy faith element and characters who grow spiritually. Why leave faith out of our fiction if it's part of our lives? I hope you'll make some new imaginary friends in the books I've listed!
I can't resist a good pun, so this book had me with the title. I found plenty to make me grin in the middle of the action, and I couldn't help rooting for Serena as she tried to prove herself on the job as a new FBI field agent and resist her mother's matchmaking.
I love a story where a quirky support character adds complications, and Serena's Aunt Martha is a hoot. And I like the hint of a coming romance, although I like both men in Serena's life and don't want to see either of them hurt.
Serena Jones has a passion for recovering lost and stolen art--one that's surpassed only by her zeal to uncover the truth about the art thief who murdered her grandfather. She's joined the FBI Art Crime Team with the secret hope that one of her cases will lead to his killer. Now, despite her mother's pleas to do something safer--like get married--Serena's learning how to go undercover to catch thieves and black market traders.
When a local museum discovers an irreplaceable Monet missing, Jones leaps into action. The clues point in different directions, and her boss orders her to cease investigating…
What makes me passionate about this topic is my love of art, encouraged by my parents and developed when I was completing an undergraduate degree in architecture. I’m also addicted to mysteries, preferably ones with history thrown into the mix. Born in Australia, I lived for some years in the UK before moving to Canberra. I hold a PhD from the London School of Economics and I’m a professor at the Australian National University. I do hope you enjoy the books on my list as much as I have.
I’d been working on my novel when I heard about the publication of The Artist’s Portrait. I at once read it because I adore the topic and also because I wanted to make sure I wasn’t writing about material that was too similar (it wasn’t!).
In Julie Keys’ beautiful novel, we see why there’ve been so few women artists… and we also get a good dose of excitement as there is murder and mystery too.
'An intriguing read with compelling descriptions of early 20th-century Sydney in all its squalor, debauchery and fascinating historical detail.' Who Weekly
'a brisk, original tale written with verve' Mud Literary Prize judging committee
A story about art, murder, and making your place in history.
Whatever it was that drew me to Muriel, it wasn't her charm.
In 1992, morning sickness drives Jane to pre-dawn walks of her neighbourhood where she meets an unfriendly woman who sprays her with a hose as she passes by. When they do talk: Muriel Kemp eyes my pregnant…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I’ve always been fascinated by art, not just the paintings themselves but their historical significance, the personalities behind the canvas, and the seemingly arbitrary value placed on one artist’s work versus another. Writing my latest novel, Hanging the Devil, was a chance to delve into the illicit side of the art world, where forgers and smugglers consort with organized crime. I’ve been an award-winning mystery author for more than a decade—this is my sixth novel—and the great thing about writing crime fiction is the chance to get lost in the research and learn something new, so writing this novel was a great excuse to visit museums, talk to experts, and plan a heist!
Robert K. Wittman is the founder of the FBI Art Crime Team, and any one of his undercover adventures could be the plot for a box office thriller. Over the course of his career Wittman not only recovered hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth a stolen property, he protected priceless masterpieces from being lost forever.
When I first began doing research for a novel about art theft, it was clear the global market for stolen masterpieces is incredibly complex, an underground network of smugglers, master forgers, and organized crime syndicates. To get my facts straight I needed a navigator, and this book immediately put me on the right track.
Wittman’s backstory and relentless drive to make art crime a priority within the FBI, as Italy has done with its Carabinieri Art Squad, is an inspiring story on its own, and many of his cases would feel right at home in…
The Wall Street Journal called him “a living legend.” The London Times dubbed him “the most famous art detective in the world.”
In Priceless, Robert K. Wittman, the founder of the FBI’s Art Crime Team, pulls back the curtain on his remarkable career for the first time, offering a real-life international thriller to rival The Thomas Crown Affair.
Rising from humble roots as the son of an antique dealer, Wittman built a twenty-year career that was nothing short of extraordinary. He went undercover, usually unarmed, to catch art thieves, scammers, and black market traders in Paris and Philadelphia, Rio and…
