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Tim Parks is the author of more than twenty novels and works of nonfiction. His novels include Europa, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. His most recent work of nonfiction is Italian Ways: On and Off the Rails from Milan to Palermo. His essays have appeared regularly in The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books, for which he blogs. He lives in Milan, Italy.
Painting Death (Duckworth and the Italian Girls Series #3)
by Tim Parks
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$14.49
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ISBN-13:
9781628726206
- Publisher: Arcade Publishing
- Publication date: 10/06/2015
- Series: Duckworth and the Italian Girls Series , #3
- Sold by: Barnes & Noble
- Format: eBook
- Pages: 352
- File size: 1 MB
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Morris Duckworth has a dark past. Having married and murdered his way into a wealthy Italian family, he has become a respected member of Veronese business life. But it’s not enough.
Never satisfied with being anything short of the best, he comes up with a plan to put on the most exciting art exhibition of the decade, based on a subject close to his heart: killing. All the great slaughters of scripture and classical times will be on show, from Cain and Abel, to Brutus and Caesar. But as Morris meets stiff resistance from the director of Verona’s Castelvecchio museum, everything starts to unravel around him. His children are rebelling, his mistress is asking for more than he wants to give, his wife is increasingly attached to her aging confessor, and, worst of all, it’s getting harder and harder to ignore the ghosts that swirl around him, and the skeletons rattling in every closet. The shame of it is that Morris Arthur Duckworth really did not want to have to kill again. Tim Parks’ acclaimed Duckworth trilogy has been thirty years in the making. In Painting Death, he brings it—and his serial-killer alter ego—to a very fitting—and very funny—end.
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Publishers Weekly
08/24/2015Parks’s cerebral third Morris Duckworth mystery (after 2001’s Mimi’s Ghost) finds the middle-aged Englishman every bit as depraved as his younger self. Having systematically dispensed with members of the rich Italian family he married into, Morris is a respected (if not suspected) member of Verona society. To further ensure his good name, he has conceived a blockbuster art exhibit—Painting Death: The Art of Assassination from Caravaggio to Damien Hirst—whose theme is dear to his heart. Morris relishes the bloody details of each famous masterpiece, since they remind him of his own sociopathic artistry. Faced with a meddlesome museum director while juggling his rebellious children, enigmatic wife, and sexy Libyan mistress, he holds secret consultations with his advisory board: the ghosts of his seven earlier victims. When Morris decides that certain Veronese citizens deserve to die, the local cardinal and the mayor, who are aware of his homicidal predilections, have different ideas. Admirers of Parks’s mainstream fiction should enjoy this black comedy, but mystery fans may find it too wordy and the pace too slow. (Oct.)
From the Publisher
“Duckworth is a worthy heir to a tradition of seductive, cultured literary monsters that include Humbert Humbert [and] Hannibal Lecter.”—Sunday Times
"Hovering adroitly between tragedy and farce . . . a good novel to savour by the pool in Tuscany this summer."—Times (London)
"Neatly written, full of calamitous moments in which the comedy is suddenly elbowed aside by genuine emotion."—Spectator
"One to relish . . . sharp, funny and satirical, with a wonderfully overblown ending."—Guardian
“This is a fiendishly clever pitch-black comedy — if not a work of art then a supremely diverting caper.” —The Australian
“Painting Death is a book that questions the idea of murder as entertainment while also making murder entertaining. It's supposed to make us squirm and it does.”—Herald Scotland
“Parks is at his strongest depicting the art world and its intrigues and intellectual snobbery.”—Financial Times
"In this final chapter of the Morris Duckworth trilogy . . . Think Patricia Highsmith meets Jeff Lindsay . . . as Duckworth's voice provides a strong dose of humor." —Booklist
"Admirers of Parks’s mainstream fiction should enjoy this black comedy." —Publishers Weekly
“Colorful, often amusing, intermittently suspenseful . . . Parks uses the museum intrigue to draw, as he has done in his more serious efforts, a vivid, impressionistic portrait of contemporary Italy.” —The New York Times