Iain Pears, The Titian Committee

 Iain Pears, The Titian Committee
copytivht © 1991 Iain Pears
Berkeley Prime Crime
ISBN 0-425-18544-1

{n their second outing*, General Taddeo Bottando, his assistant Flavia di Stefano, and Jonthan Argyll (currently employed by an art gallery, but maybe not for long) become embroiled in murder and the complexities of dealing with old masters.  Bottando does not really care that much about the murder and still less about the people involved; he is concerned about his department’s budget, and continued existence.  In this instance, diStefano is sent to Venice to help investigate the murder of Louise Masterson, Ph.D., an art historian and member of the titular Titian committee.  (The committee has six members—well, five now.  It was established by an eminent Italian art historian, Georges Bralle (who retired because of disagreements about how the committee should operate).  The remaining members, art historians all, are Roberts. Kollmar, Van Heteren, Miller, and Lorenzo.

Masterson was murdered in the Gardenetti Reali, a public garden, around midnight.  The first question, of course, is whether the murderer had a personal motive or was a thief for whom things got out of hand.  (This being a mystery novel, we all know how that will play out.  And, given that the motive was personal, and suspicion is likely to fall on the members of the Titian Committee, which of them might have had a motive sufficient to lead to murder.  The initial investigation, conducted by a Venetian policeman, Bovolo (who only really wants  the whole thing to go away), reaches the easy (and quick and safe) conclusion that it was a theft gone wrong.  But, it was, of course, not that easy.

Meanwhile, and more or less by chance, Argyll is in Venice trying to pry a batch of paintings away from the Marchesa du Mulino, to be sent to London and sold at auction.  And the negotiations are not going well.  He runs into di Stefano** at a restaurant, and they wind up working together on her murder and his attempt to sell so he can keep his job.

Nothing, of course, comes easily.  It seems that Masterson had irritated all of the other members of the Titian Committee (but to the point of murder), that one of the members of the committee that another member badly needhas been engaged in somewhat unethical attributions of paintings references to support his application for tenure, that yet a third member (the nephew of the Marchesa, who really wants to get his hands on her paintings); and still another is deeply in love with Masterson, who has been paying to little attention to him.

And, in the midst of all this, Argyll thinks he has found, in a small, rundown church, an actual Titian.  More?  General Bottando shows up in Venice to help things along.  And more people die. 

I must admit to having had some difficulty keeping all the actors clear in my mind, and that the final explication of the who and how and why of things was also a very tangled tale.  So tangled that di Stefano’s explanation left both Bottando and Argyll confused, that Bottando’s clarificaion left both di Stefano and Argyll confused, and that Argyll’s revelations about his findings about his Titian, the Marchesa’s collection, and his commentary on the explanations of the other two leave them confused.  (As an aside, I love Italy—at least the parts I have visited, and this book did not make me particularly eager to travel to Venice.)  Having said that, I will say, again, that this is a marvelous series with characters I enjoy spending time with; my chief regret is that there are only seven books.

 

*The Raphael Affair (set in Rome) was the first, and I have already reported on #3, The Bernini Bust (set in LA).

**They met in The Rafael Affair and have remained close.