Sunflower Publishing Book Reviews

    A Perfect Crime    By Larry Maness SUMMARY Before 11 priceless pieces of art were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, a respected Italian violin maker visited the museum to inspect a rare musical instrument requiring restoration. He took measurements and photographs and reported his findings to the museum’s director. Then, he disappeared. Was the innocent invitation to the violin maker the first step in a complex plot to rob the Gardner? The museum director thinks so and hires Theo R. Perdoux, an expert in worldwide art theft, to investigate. Inspired by the actual unsolved robbery of Boston’s Gardner Museum, Maness spins a plausible web that races ahead like a shot. The brisk pace and clever twists offer an intriguing explanation why masterpieces worth millions have never been found.   MY REVIEW: After the success of The Last Perdoux, Larry Maness is back with a second Theo R. Perdoux mystery/crime which promises to be a cap...

  Two Women in Rome By Elizabeth Buchan SUMMARY: Lottie Archer arrives in Rome excited to begin her new job as an archivist. When she discovers a valuable fifteenth-century painting, she is drawn to find out more about the woman who left it behind, Nina Lawrence. Nina seems to have led a rewarding and useful life, restoring Italian gardens to their full glory following the destruction of World War Two. So why did no one attend her funeral in 1978? In exploring Nina's past, Lottie unravels a tragic love story beset by the political turmoil of post-war Italy. And as she edges closer to understanding Nina, she begins to confront the losses in her own life. MY REVIEW: T his is a powerful read and I almost feel that the understated and minimal title ‘Two Women in Rome’ belies a weighty and intricate storyline about Lottie and Nina. Two stories run in conjunction and are self-perpetuating. The more Lottie reads from Nina’s private journal, the more we discover about the lives of each...