Travis Simpkins: "The Bernini Bust" by Iain Pears

"The Bernini Bust" by Iain Pears

Harcourt Brace, 1992

Brief Review by Travis Simpkins

The third installation in the Jonathan Argyll & Flavia di Stefano series, The Bernini Bust, once again finds author Iain Pears in top form… expertly combining murder, mystery, art history and museum dealings in a convincing and clever manner.

Accident-prone art dealer Jonathan Argyll finds himself in Los Angeles, brokering the sale of his Titian painting to the ultra-rich Arthur M. Moresby Museum of Fine Arts (think J. Paul Getty Museum). With the arrival of a shady dealer, a mysterious bust of Pope Pius V by Gian Lorenzo Bernini pops up as the museum's newest acquisition. But the museum's owner is murdered, and the Bernini bust disappears. Argyll convinces the LAPD to call in the Italian National Art Theft Squad to cover the art angle, and General Bottando sends researcher Flavia di Stefano to Los Angeles to aid in the investigation (and kindle a romance). Another murder and a near-fatal car crash set the tone for further intrigue as Jonathan and Flavia comb through possibilities and known facts… including the likelihood of a master forger at work, a decades-old smuggling operation, tax evasion and a conspiracy to curtail the museum's expansion plans. Was the missing Bernini bust real or fake to begin with? Great characters permeate the text, including a detective in need of dental work, an overpowering widow, a disinherited black-sheep son, an apathetic director and an overzealous museum security manager.

Arguably one of the best books in the series, The Bernini Bust remains entertaining and suspenseful throughout the concise span of it's 192 pages.