The Lost Van Gogh

The Lost Van Gogh by Jonathan Santlofer  339 pp.

This novel starts out great but then slips in to a story of too much with too many characters. A young-ish couple, one a painter, the other an art historian find a nondescript painting in an antique shop. With closer examination they discover that under the painting of a woman, a Van Gogh self portrait is hidden. As they try to prove it is real, it is stolen from them. This leads the couple on an international search with private investigators, art galleries, INTERPOL, and Nazi looted art specialists. The introduction of more and more characters - good guys, bad guys, and ones who switch allegiances - make the story much more complicated and tedious. You really need a scorecard to keep track of who is on which side and who can be trusted. It's a nice premise but overblown. No fault to the audiobook narrator, Edoardo Ballerini who does an excellent job, as usual.

Holy City

Holy City by Henry Wise, 344 pages

For unknown reasons, deputy Will has returned to his small hometown in rural Virginia, despite the fact that his estranged family is long gone and he has a barely functional house to live in. After Will pulls the body of a local man from a fire, the corrupt sheriff immediately pins the murder on a Black man who was seen running away from the scene, though Will is sure that he's not the culprit. Will grudgingly partners with a private investigator to start looking into the murder outside of proper channels, and the pair uncovers all manner of seedy corruption in the small town.

This was suggested to me as a mystery, and while yes, there is an investigation into who killed the guy found in the fire, it's pretty obvious who did it and it gets solved WAY before the end of the book. I wasn't a big fan of this one, as it was really hard to find any redeeming qualities in any of the characters, or to really understand their motives. If you want morally questionable characters in a gritty, racially charged crime novel set in the South, pick up S.A. Cosby and leave this one on the shelf.